Recalculating

Recently there was a segment on ABC’s 20/20 about the misadventures of three women in Death Valley.  It seems that they decided to go on an impromptu sightseeing trip through one of the worlds most desolate and dangerous places on earth.  I’ll refrain from all the details but suffice it to say they got lost.  According to 20/20 and these fearless explorers, the main reason they got in trouble was due to inaccurate direction from the dashboard mounted GPS.

If you are a regular reader of my musings you know that I have a love/hate relationship with my GPSbut that, as they say, is another story.  Learning of the plight of these women prompts me to remind you that if you have a GPS you do need to update the software periodically.  Just like printed maps must be updated, the innards of your Garmin or TomTom need to be refreshed. 

The amount of data resident in even the simplest GPS device is huge and as such there are bound to be errors.  These often get reported by customers and get fixed and are included in the updated information.  Information about new roads, speed limit changes, location of new businesses and even abandoned roads changes constantly.

Most all manufactures of GPSdevices offer updates.  Most are easy to install although some are a bit pricey.  For example Garmin, a leader in this industry, offers on its website updates for most all of its products.  For a one time fee of $90 you can get updates downloaded to your device for as long as you own it. For $50 you can purchase a single update.

Many of us have GPSapps on our smart phone.  In most cases the data for these services is automatically updated so you don’t need to be concerned about updating to the most current info used by Google Maps or Apple Maps navigation apps.

If you have a built in navigation systems in your car there are various ways to get it updated.  Some automakers will provide this service at the dealership while others provide updated software on a DVD that is inserted into the CD/DVD slot on the dashboard.  For updating information on your specific system, just look in the Operator’s Manual.  It’s that fat book that keeps falling out of the glove box when you are looking for those napkins you got at Burger City.

Updating your GPSshould make your next road trip safer and more enjoyable.  Now if I can just get that lady in my GPS to lose that attitude when she tells me she is “recalculating.”

Might Want to Wait to Buy a 4K TV

If you have ventured out to purchase a new TV recently you may have been confronted with some new and often confusing options.  Now that the manufacturers have essentially given up on 3D TV they have released a new line of models that boast extraordinary clarity and color.  Dubbed 4K TV, these sets provide resolutions up to four times that of the regular HDTV.  The screen on the HD set in your family room has about 2 million pixels while the new 4K model boasts more that 8 million.  So is more, better?

Like most simple questions, there is no simple answer.   For sure if you have a large TV, i.e. 50 inches or more, the clarity of the picture will be noticeable.  On the other hand, if you are watching on a 27 inch screen the difference will be negligible.  It is similar to still photography resolution.  The high resolution is really not noticeable until you enlarge the print. That 3” x 5” baby picture of Aunt Emma you found in the family album looked great until you blew it up for that poster celebrating her 90^th birthday.  The kid looks like she had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

The set manufacturers will claim, with some veracity, that even a standard HD program will look brighter and the colors more vivid when displayed on a 4K set.  Only you can decide if the extra cost is worth it with a side by side comparison.  Beware, as some less than reputable salespersons will show you a side by side comparison but have the TV’s brightness and contrast set very low on the model they don’t want you to buy.

Another consideration you might keep in mind before you spend the extra bucks for a 4K TV is that right now there is little or no 4K content available.   The higher resolution makes for major program storage and transmission challenges.  Where an HD DVR might only need a few terabytes of storage, a single 4K movie would fill up that same DVR.

Just coming on the market are 4K receivers and program storage devices that connect to the internet.  Only downloaded material is possible now.  Real time program delivery is not. It requires such high bandwidth that no cable, satellite or traditional over-the-air broadcaster and only a handful of ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have the ultra high transmission capacity to handle live programming.

Since the technology is still developing, 4K programs are not yet readily available and the prices are still high, I would wait to purchase a 4K TV.  But if you are one of those people who just must have the newest and greatest, go for it.  Oh yes, invite me over to watch.  I’ll bring the beer and chips.

Paying for what you don’t watch

The cable and satellite wars continue to be waged between the people who make the programs you watch (or don’t watch) and the people who deliver them to your TV.  Most recently the battle is between CBS and Time Warner.  The giant cable company refuses to pay CBS what the company maintains are excessive fees to carry “How I Met Your Mother” or “Dexter.”  Things are not going well in the 500 channel universe because that universe is enabled by an arcane business plan, a plan that is under fire from politicians and consumers.
 

The cable or satellite providers pay for each of the channels that they carry on their systems.  Those fees are passed on to you as part of your monthly bill.  The fees you pay are all over the map.  In our area you pay as much as $5.00 per month for ESPN and perhaps only 25 cents for the “Wallpaper Channel.”  Whether you watch either makes no difference.  This practice is being scrutinized by some in government and exploited by some of the new players using the Internet to deliver TV programming.

 

If you are like most TV viewers you watch only a handful of channels.  One or two favorite local stations, a news channel, a weather channel and one or two specialty channels like ESPN, HGTV and HBO.  Once in a while you may venture to some more eclectic fare but that is the exception.   What many are asking is why they can’t choose from a menu what they want and pay only for those services.  After all, when you go to Kroger and buy a pound of ground beef you are not required to also buy charcoal, peanut butter and three rolls of toilet tissue.

 

The popularity of the Netflix, Hulu and Amazon online video services continues to erode cable’s dominance offering viewers what they want, when they want it and at a very competitive price.  Aereo delivers on the Internet, in a handful of major cities, an a la carte menu of channels allowing the viewer flexibility in what they watch, when they watch it and what they pay for.  What a concept!  Many of the established players in the TV game have tried in the courts to stop Aereo but to date have been unsuccessful.

 

There is really no simple solution.  Backers of the status quo point out that in an a la carte world only 25 channels would survive making diversity in content disappear.  Those pushing for change note that there is little diversity now with copy cat programming becoming the rule.  How many more weird Pawn Shop owners do we need to watch?

 

The power of the dollar will ultimately prevail.  Even with the flawed channel bundling business plan, the big cable companies are making a lot of money.  There is little impetus for change now.  I look for change as TV viewing transitions to a combination of online and on demand delivery via the Internet leaving only late breaking news and sports to be  the bread and butter of cable and broadcast.

Where Did I Leave Those Keys?

I came across a new product that not only could provide many of us aging boomers with some help keeping track of our car keys and other items that seem to go missing but can also let us participate in the development of a new product and even a new way of funding the R&D and manufacturing process.  The product is called Tile.  For less than 20 bucks you can check it out.

Tile combines tiny plastic tags with a companion smartphone app, and promises to help you find and recover lost or even stolen items. But, as they say on late night TV, “There’s More…”  By connecting your smartphone with others who have the Tile App on their phone, your tile can “call home” from distances much further than the 150 ft coverage area.

Here is how it works.  The Tile is a small postage stamp size tag that you attached to your key ring, your purse, even your bicycle.  The device sends out a locator beam to your iPhone or Android smartphone within a range of about 150 feet.  If you can’t find your keys your phone will lead you to them or you can ping the Tile and it will emit a sound.  Each Tile will run for about one year before needing replacement. 

There have been other devices similar to Tile available for years. The real innovation comes by networking your Tile app with others who have purchased the product.  If you authorize your Tile and the Tile app, any phone with the Tile app can receive the signal of any Tile and report the location back to the associated smartphone.   So if you have a Tile attached to your lap top and it is stolen, if it gets in range of any smartphone with a Tile App installed, it will transparently send the location of the lap top back to your phone.  So in essence the entire Tilecommunity helps keep track of your stuff.

The developers are using “crowdfunding” to launch this product.  Since only the prototype exists, each person ordering will not receive the product until Winter of 2014. But your credit card will be charged as soon as you place the order.  The press reports brisk sales with more than $2.5 million in pre-orders.

I figure that I will give it a try.  For $20 I can feel like a high tech investor and I may come away with a nifty gadget.  If you are interested you can get more information at the Tile website   www.thetileapp.com

Why are eBooks So Expensive?

For those of us who have embraced eBooks, the US district court’s ruling last week was read with more than a passing interest.  The court ruled that Apple played a "central role" in a conspiracy with the biggest book publishers in the United States to fix prices in violation of antitrust law.

To understand this ruling a bit of history might be in order.  When the sales of eBooks first began to take off, Amazon was in the catbird seat.  They sold most books at $9.95 or less.  Best sellers, classics, even special interest publications were sold below10 bucks. Then, all of a sudden when the iPad was introduced and Apple wanted into the eBook market, publishers raised their prices.  Apparently the Federal Judge took notice and ruled that this was not a coincidence and those meetings between Apple and some of the publishers were not as benign as Apple’s top brass maintained.

The publishers are not happy, insisting that they need higher prices to make a decent profit.  This is something that I just don’t understand.

Before the advent of eBooks and the Internet, the publishing business was much more complex.  It required the manufacturing, i.e. printing, of books, warehousing, transportation and agreements with affiliate books stores.  All was very expensive.  Even the decision of the number of copies to print was a big gamble.  Too many copies sitting in a warehouse of a less than stellar title was expensive.   Too few copies made available of a gang buster best seller could cost even more money.

Today, with the advent of eBooks publishers have no printing cost, no warehouse fees and no transportation costs.  They don’t have to have any product on the shelf waiting for a buyer.  In short, most of the risk and hard costs have vanished.  Nevertheless they lament that lower prices for the consumer will render their business unprofitable.

If they could make a profit selling traditional books at 15 bucks each, why can’t they make even more profit selling eBooks at $9.95?  Perhaps bits and bytes are more expensive than paper and ink but I think not.

Free TV in Jeopardy?

I have written often about the changes in how many of us are consuming TV.  With the proliferation of wireless hand held devices and the expansion of high speed broadband networks, we can now cut the cord or should I say cut the cable.   The shift to some of these new technologies enabling us to view our favorite American Idol or local weather and sports when we are on the move may bring about some other changes.  Those changes may not be so good for the consumer.

Free over–the-air TV has been around since the late 1940s in this country.  Even with the explosion of pay cable and satellite services in the 1980s and the advent of digital TV in the late 1990’s, most of us could still watch many of our favorite programs using a TV and antenna without reaching for a wallet.  In fact recently there has been an uptick in the use of traditional over-the-air viewing since digital TV is capable of providing many more channels than the old analog system. Here in the Cincinnati area it is not uncommon to receive more than 25 channels of programming over-the-air without paying a dime.

Free broadcast TV may be going the way of free air for your tires from the corner gas station.  Recently in some larger cities, ABCprovided free transmission of its local station direct to smart phones.  So while commuting on the train or bus you could watch Good Morning America on the way to work and local news on the way home.  Now after a trial of about six months, ABC has now announced that in order to watch on your phone you will have to be a subscriber to a local cable service and pay a monthly fee.   While this does not affect the reception of the local channels using a standard TV, it does begin to take ABCtoward a pay model for all or at least some of its more popular programs.

With over 85% of all TV viewers already paying for cable or satellite some argue that free TV is already a thing of the past.   Sporting events, especially baseball and boxing disappeared from free TV years ago.  Highly acclaimed series like The Sopranos have never been available on free TV.

The big players like Time Warner, Disney and Comcast have been broadening their holdings and control over new platforms of delivery.  Even internet-only services like Hulu, Netflix and YouTube are attracting suitors from the traditional media giants. 

Content is king so as more quality content switches to the pay model, we can look for a more mindless reality programming available free of charge.   All of a sudden “Free” doesn’t look so good.

Get Ready For More TV Set Choices

It is hard to tell which new technologies will take off and which will be digital flashes in the pan.  The new TV set offerings make things even more confusing. Now that most of us have replaced our analog TV sets or at least relegated them to the guest bedroom or basement, there are some new offerings now available that might make that new 46” Sony Bravia flat screen seem like that old 27” Sylvania now gathering dust in the garage. 

No too long ago the buzz word was 3-D.  TV manufactures and program producers saw the renewed interest in 3-D content at the cinema and decided that the home viewer would also be interested in watching 3-D programs.  A few 3-D channels were provided by cable companies and most all set makers offered a variety of new 3-D TVs.  Some required expensive eye glasses and others used simpler displays.  The common denominator was that the public really wasn’t interested.  Recently the 3-D channels have been disappearing from the cable line up and it looks like for now 3-D in the home is on life support.

Not to worry if you are one of those consumers who must get the latest new technology before the guy next door.  There are several TV set manufacturers who are developing new sets capable of much high resolution than mere High Definition as we know it today.

Dubbed Ultra High Definition, they come in several “flavors.”   Ultra HD 2K, 4K and 8K and they all can provide breathtaking clarity and detail. For example, a 4K UHD set has trice the horizontal and vertical resolution than the 1080 set that is now in your living room and has four times the number of pixels

You may wish to wait to plunk down your cash for one of these new sets since there are several different competing production formats.  It is setting up a rematch the Beta vs. VHS fight.   Also you will not have anything to watch since no broadcaster, cable or satellite service is moving to provide an Ultra HD service.  No DVD currently has UDH material either. The UHD material is a ravenous consumer of bandwidth and will require major expensive changes in the production and distribution chain from the camera to the display and most everything in between. 

So if you absolutely need to be the first one on your block to have an Ultra HD go for it.  If the screen is very large, i.e. 60’ plus, you may see a modest improvement in clarity but most people will be hard pressed to see the difference.  Perhaps someone will just sell a label with a fake Ultra HD Logo that you can put on tour standard set.  Remember the fake cell phone antennas that were sold for placement on the rear window of your car  when mobile phones were a status symbol?