Google and Yahoo are expanding their search products to television. Google Labs released their beta of ‘Google Video’ today. This system allows a user to search closed captioning and see still frame grabs of the relevant video. Some PVRs and TV tuner cards for PCs have done this in the past – tuning to or alerting when certain keywords were matched. But these projects are on a much broader scale.
In a New York Times story this morning (free registration required), Google’s vp for product management says “The long-term business model is complicated and will evolve over time.” I’ll say – the rights to aggregating video from hundreds of local television broadcasts, not to mention networks like CNN, ABC, etc., are going to be complex. But given Google’s audience, it wil be interesting to see if broadcasters see value in placement here. The Times story digs briefly into the touchy issues of rights and network deals related to these types of technologies. A worthwhile read.
Guest columnist Ross Rubin blogs on Engadget today that despite Apple not calling the Mac mini a media center device, it has all that in spades. DVD-player? Check. Rip, Mix, Burn? Check. Ken Burns hi-res slideshow effects? Check. Add on a USB TV tuner, and this thing is your TiVo on steroids. Rubin suggests the mini is a stealth MCE. The apps in iLife are all that a user is looking for when they want to access their media (movies, music, photos), and of course, there is the elegance factor. He also talks about the possibility that Apple is waiting to enter this market for a true media center once the CableCard standard is settled. That’s a great point – you should see how my IR blasters are scattered around with my MCEs, TiVo, etc. Anyway, others have blogged about ‘mini as media center’, but I think he hits the nail on the head here.
Despite Apple claims just last week that ‘thermal challenges‘ might delay the announcement of portable G5 laptops, Taiwanese tech magazine DigiTimes reports on two manufacturers there ready to ship G5 portables in quantity by the end of Q2 2005. The report is headlined in ho-hum fashion: ‘Sources: Taiwan makers receive Apple’s Mac mini and iPod shuffle orders.’ Yawn. Well, what the report fails to highlight is that two Taiwanese vendors are on track to ship 200k+ portables to Apple by Q2 2005.
Asustek Computer is making the iPod shuffle, and is tapped in this report to ship G5 iBooks in quantity before the end of Q2. Quanta is reported to be on track to ship 30-50k Powerbook G5s per month in Q2.
BoingBoing reports on this posting from monkey methods’ blog: photos allegedly from a ‘Teen Beat’ magazine story on Bill Gates, circa 1983. My favorite part of these is not the vintage nostalgia, yadda yadda, but rather the fact that what looks like a 512k Mac appears on the desk next to his stinky AT in the background. I seriously doubt that you’d find a Dual-G5 and Cinema Display sharing space with Mr. Gates P4 if you visited his office at Redmond these days…
