New and Old Come Together

In a world of iPads and iPhones, Pandora and Spotify, YouTube and Netflix, you might think that radio is an anachronism.  But the 100-year-old technology is still enjoyed by millions.  Just this last week in Cincinnati, the announcement that iconic radio host Jim Scott would retire sparked comments from people young and old who report they still listen each morning.  And, until recently, the automobile and radio were joined at the hip, or I guess I should say, the axle.  Drive time is still often the most valuable time a radio station has to sell.

Most people listen to radio the old fashion way—using a standard radio tuner in their car or home.  But since most radio stations also distribute their broadcasts on the internet, you can listen using your computer, tablet or smart phone.  In some ways using the internet is preferable if your favorite station is a long distance away.  Anyone who drives long distances appreciates the frustration of listening to your favorite program on the radio only to have it fade away as you drive further from the station.  Listening online enables you to listen no matter where you are, provided you have a decent connection to the internet.

This feature is especially appreciated by people who may have moved to a new city and want to stay in touch with what’s happening back home.  Or perhaps you have a favorite radio personality or program that is only available on one station and it is thousands of miles away.

Many of us like the convenience of a radio.  You turn it on and tune in the station you like.  It is really simple.  Listening on a computer requires booting up the computer, launching the software and of course making sure you are connected to the internet.  The speakers in a laptop are not all that good.  It is a little easier with a smartphone or tablet.  But even the speakers on those devices are at best adequate.

There are several models of internet radios that look and feel like your mom’s old Philco, but connect to the internet via Wi-Fi and allow you to “tune” in most any radio station in the world.  They are not really radios, of course, but rather special purpose computers that make finding and listening to radio stations distributed on the internet effort free.  Once set up, they stay connected to your home Wi-Fi and with the touch of one button allow you to begin listening to your favorite station no matter if it is located down the street or on the other side of the world.  These devices also connect to Pandora, Spotify and a number of other internet-delivered music services.

Prices begin at about $100 and go up to about $250 depending on the features like remote control, high quality sound reproduction and even recording capability.  You can find internet radios at the big box stores and of course online at Amazon.com.  The really pricey models are sold by Chrutchfield.com, a high end online audio dealer. 

It is about time CIA!

The Central Intelligence Agency announced last week that it is creating a new top-level directorate called the Directorate of Digital Innovation.  This is one of the most sweeping changes to the agency since it was established in 1947.  According to reports, the directorate will combine several existing units, including the Information Operations Center, which evaluates threats to U.S. computer systems and also engages in its own cyberespionage.  The new structure also incorporates the Open Source Center, which, among other things, monitors social media and foreign websites.

When I first read the announcement I was amazed that it has taken the CIA so long to identify cyber war as a critical threat to the United States. Or as Bart Simpson might interject, “DUH.”  Yes, cyber-security indeed deserves “top-level” attention.

Cyber-attacks might well be much more devastating than more traditional guns-and-missile attacks that we have been spending billions of dollars to defend against.  With most every aspect of modern life controlled by some digital device linked to other digital devices, any interruption in that communication could be devastating.  Our ability to carry out financial transactions or our ability to flush our toilets could be prevented by a strategically placed line of malicious code in some computer or network.

Many of us have experienced what happens at work when “the server goes down” or when the internet connection is off line.  At most offices, productivity drops to almost zero.  We are paralysed. I know of several instances when employees were sent home.

If some foreign miscreants were able to successfully hack our key networks and interrupt the flow of information on the internet, we would be cast into chaos.  Planes wouldn’t fly, electricity wouldn’t flow and commerce would cease—all without one bullet fired or one bomb dropped.

I am sure that the CIA and other government agencies are well aware of the high stakes of preventing such an attack, but I don’t think that most Americans place enough importance on this issue.  For many, an interruption in internet connectivity means an inconvenience of having to wait to see the new episode of “House of Cards.”  Hmmm, a “house of cards”: how appropriate!

Read the Instructions…You Will Be Amazed

If you are like many folks, you love to take home a brand new electronic device.  Be it a new MP3 player, game console or a slick new flat screen TV, many can’t wait to get it unpacked and plugged in.  Taking the time to read any sort of instruction manual is seen as nothing more than a delay in enjoying that new toy.  So for many, those instructions find their way to the bottom of some junk drawer or left in the packing box.  As a result, many cool hidden features go unknown and unused.

A great example can be found in your living or family room.  That 55” LED flat screen TV most likely has several features you never use and some of them are really cool.  Sure you can watch your favorite TV program on cable, satellite or over air.  You can also connect it to a DVD player.   However, a look at that instruction manual may surface more options.

Many new flat screen TVs have several different inputs.  Most are for standard connections to the cable box or DVD player.  If you look closely you may find that your TV has a USB port.  That port allows you to use the TV as a very large picture frame for all the pictures locked up in your computer, iPhone or iPad.   There are several ways you can display pictures that can enhance your next party.

Perhaps you are having a birthday party.  You can gather up photos of the person being celebrated and store them on a USB thumb drive.   Once you plug that drive into your TV set you should be able to display those photos on the large screen.  Most new TVs already have software installed that allows you to create and display a “slide show.”  Some TVs also allow you to insert special transitions between each picture and to play music.  This can add a really nice touch to a party or gathering. 

If you have a laptop computer you can connect it to that TV as well.  If it is an older laptop you may need to use the VGA port on the TV.  Many TVs have them as a standard input.  The newer laptops and TVs use a HDMI cable to connect.    Once connected, you have a very large screen that makes sharing anything you have on small laptop screen a breeze.

You will be amazed at some of the features you will find on even the simplest of new electronic gizmos.  All you need to unlock them is the patience to read the instructions.  The challenge now is remembering where you put them when you opened the box.

Is TV News a Dinosaur?

I have always been a news junkie.  I regularly read, albeit on line, two newspapers most every day, drive to and from work listening to Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and, with my wife, watch the TV evening news, usually while washing dishes.  Recently I have found the latter less than informative. This got me to thinking that the TV Network news model is really obsolete and nobody bothered to tell the networks.

All the commercial TV networks have similar formats and cover about the same content.  Most often that content consist of information that I already know having learned it from non-stop sources throughout the day.  So any given evening about 90% of the reporting is not news to me and the remaining 10% of little or no interest.  I really don’t care how much money Kim Kardashian was paid for her Super Bowl commercial.  That report belongs in Entertainment Tonight not in David Muir’s news script. 

Perhaps it is my advancing age that has changed me.  But I would rather believe that the format for these programs is no longer relevant to most viewers. The news program model we have today goes back to the early 50’s, with programs like the Camel Caravan of News, a 15-minute summary of the day’s happenings hosted by John Cameron Swayze. 

That was a much different time when an important happening in the next city might take hours to be reported locally and news events around the world might be unknown for days or even weeks.  Reporting the news was very expensive and time consuming.  Even in my early years in TV, the equipment was expensive and complex.  The process of capturing, editing and transmitting news stories was mostly vested in the hands of a few at TV stations and networks.

How things have changed as most anyone with a mobile phone has the capacity to record and transmit video from most anywhere.  So rather than having to wait till 6:00 PM to see the 13 inches of snow on the Harrison streets, before the last flake dropped, I could view on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram more snow that I care to see.  On a more serious note, we all saw first-hand the impact of social media during the Arab Spring.

Seems to me that the news operations need a major change in format and emphasis to serve changing audience needs.  That audience has more options for getting late breaking events.  What is lacking is a concentration on the “Why.”   Most vexing issues today are very complex.  If they were simple, we would have speedy resolution.  It seems to me that the role of news programs in today’s world is to help us understand what we see and hear and not to provide a litany of short vignettes and reports telling us things we already know.

This kind of news reporting is hard.  It is difficult to explain the complex without losing the audience.  But it is precisely what is needed and what is not now being provided.  Perhaps the shrinking audiences for these programs will compel change for the better or perhaps we will see more of a nightly caravan of trivia.

If the news programs do go away, how will I keep up with all these new drugs that I need to ask my doctor about? 

I

Cool iPad and iPhone Apps for Music Makers

Anyone with a smartphone or tablet, especially of the “i” kind, know that there is an app for just about anything you want to do.  There are the mundane (e.g. a flashlight, as well as some very sophisticated medical assessment tools that monitor your heart.)   To say that these devices have become the 21^st Century Swiss Army Knife is an understatement.

Below we will be discussing a very cool app and related hardware that should be of interest to any musician no matter their level of proficiency.  Essentially it allows your iPhone or iPad to serve as a very high end sound recording device.

Most people already know that the iPhone and iPad have recording capability.  Otherwise, what explains the number of cat videos on YouTube?   Most often the audio-only recording features of these devices are overlooked. We are indeed a video generation.

Recently I was given a wonderful add-on that allows me to connect very high quality microphones to my iPad or iPhone.  While the built in mics on the iPhone and iPad are satisfactory for simple audio recording tasks, if you want to capture music with good fidelity you must have a good microphone and be able to position in it in a proper location.   Holding your phone above your head just doesn’t cut it.

The I RIG Pre is a small battery powered device that combines a professional XLR microphone plug, a pre-amplifier and a small output plug that fits the jack on your phone or iPad.  Most high quality microphones use these professional XLR plugs so most any high quality mic can now be used along with a cable allowing the mic to be properly placed in the room to pick up the best audio.

There are several apps, many of them free, that capture these recordings and allow you to edit, enhance and save these sessions.  Most also allow you to convert the audio files to MP3, MP4 or WAV formats so they can be shared and played on most any digital music player. I currently use Voice Record Pro.  You can find it at the App Store.  You can find the I RIG Pre at many music stores and online.

If you are a musician and enjoy recording your work but don’t want the hassle of complicated recording gear, you might want to look closely at this option.

Internet Regulation Takes Center Stage, Again

The internet is back in the news with last week’s “Net Neutrality” remarks by Thomas Wheeler, FCC Chairman.  Seems like every two or three months some government or industry leader makes some pronouncement about rules and regulations for the internet, and how, if enacted, they will either be the death knell for the internet in the USA or enable the internet to expand in unprecedented speed and availability for all.

The current discussions and arguments deal with the FCC’s desire to regulate internet providers under some of the same regulations imposed on telephone companies.  Currently there are certain “common carrier” restrictions on telephone companies that, if placed on internet providers, would make “net neutrality” the law of the land.  Simply put, net neutrality means that internet service providers, or I.S.P.s, can’t give one website an advantage over another, or allow companies to pay extra to have their data placed on a “faster lane” ahead of competitors. 

For many internet providers the imposition of regulation on their business is portrayed as nothing short of a disaster.  They maintain that any regulation will stifle competition and innovation.   Such protestations deserve some investigation.

Regulation and innovation seem to coexist in the mobile phone business.  The services, options and costs have not been hampered by regulation.   For sure, competition continues among several companies with different plans, subscription fees and options vying for your business.

The argument that somehow these regulations will keep the companies from providing better service also seems to ring hollow.  I have written about this often.  The internet speeds that most of us have available at home or at the office are laughable compared to those available in other parts of the world.  Apart from some US communities like Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kansas City and Ephrata, a tiny burg in Washington State, our internet speeds lag way behind the rest of the world.   This is not because of regulation.

Access to the internet is no longer a luxury.  In many cases good access is more important than access to the telephone.  Shopping, banking, communicating or just making a living would not be possible in today’s world without the internet.  Because it is so important, it seems to me that some regulation and oversight is a good idea.

I do worry that the businesses providing internet in the USA, as slow as they are, will find it difficult to deal with the FCC bureaucracy which often moves at a glacial pace.  We could hope that the FCC will be forced to move quicker and the internet providers will see that a faster internet is both a good business strategy and good for the American economy.   

ESPN may have brought us to the tipping point

About ten years ago there was published a popular book by Malcolm Gladwell titled the Tipping Point…How little things can make a big difference.  It was quite popular among many in business, since it described how major trends are shaped by seemingly small things.  Last month some announcements by ESPN, and late last year by HBO and Showtime, may have brought the cable and satellite industry to a tipping point.

If you are a regular reader of this column or blog, you know that I have written often about how the economic model of cable and satellite providers was slowly being eroded and could soon collapse.  The model in question is the bundling, or tiered, approach to providing your channels.  This model is one that forces you to pay for services that you will never use.  Since it results in very strong profits, the Time Warners and Comcasts of the world are not in a hurry to make any changes.

TV audience researchers have long known that many cable and satellite subscribers continued to pay escalating monthly fees only because it was the only way to continue to get ESPN and HBO.  These two services are extremely popular and, up until recently, exclusively available via cable or satellite.  Many analysts in the industry thought that since ESPN was making billions on this arrangement, they would be slow to embrace any major changes in how they reach customers.

Well, the tipping point may have been reached.  ESPN has signed a deal with SLING TV that will allow subscribers to have ESPN programming via internet delivered TV.  Initially, the SLING TV subscribers will have two ESPN channels among other popular cable fare.  All now available without subscribing to cable.  For $20 per month, SLING TV subscribers will receive a dozen channels including ESPN, Disney TBS, HGTV, CNN and the ABC Family.  

This announcement comes on the heels of similar announcements by HBO and Showtime. Both will allow viewers to subscribe to their services via the internet thus making cable cord cutting more attractive for millions who pay for, but don’t watch the 500 cable channels.

The SLING TV service is owned by Dish, the satellite service, but is being operated as a separate company.  Perhaps the folks at Dish are looking for a life boat if the DishTV market should implode.

The SLING TV service is not perfect.  You can watch only one channel at a time, you can’t record the programs and the channel offerings are a bit meager even for the cord cutters.  I look for other similar services to launch now that the tipping point has been reached.

As I write this I am getting ready to watch the Super Bowl…how much longer will I need a TV to watch it?   …and what about all those commercials?