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Paul Andrews: “What happened to .NET? Microsoft’s flagship strategy for ‘any time, anywhere computing from any device’ has sunk like a stone. By now we were supposed to be seeing initial .NET applications, but the new rallying cry seems to be for Palladium, a security initiative that has met with the same skepticism and resistance from the developer community that .NET inspired. At its worst, Palladium looks to be a sop to Hollywood and its efforts to control digital content.” [Scripting News]

The Internet may have bombed on Wall Street, but it’s doing just fine on Main Street

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The Internet may have bombed on Wall Street, but it’s doing just fine on Main Street

Very good “NYT” article outlining the way the technology is changing the world even as the stock market thinks the revolution’s over. Useful source of quotes for a point of view I’m often trying to put across. For example:

As old-line media celebrates its return to power and to vogue, some analysts and executives caution that the Internet’s capacity to change the rules should not be discounted too quickly. Investors may have repudiated the Internet, they say, but consumers have not.

“The Internet may not be doing so great on Wall Street, but it’s doing great on Main Street,” said Marshall Cohen, senior vice president for research at America Online. “As far as the people who are online, they’re using it more and valuing it more.”

For consumers, that may be a good thing. But for media companies looking to the Internet for profits, it remains a frustrating reality. The “digital revolution” that many traditional media executives were convinced would topple them or make them rich has not materialized.

In part, that is because the Internet has turned out to be more of a souped-up telephone than a delivery vehicle for media and entertainment. E-mail messaging is by far the medium’s most popular feature.

But with 61 percent of American adults using the Internet, up from 46 percent two years ago, analysts and media executives say the medium is beginning to change consumer expectations of what mainstream culture should offer. Consumers who were once content to sit back and absorb what was beamed at them are demanding more control over how and when they consume movies, television, newspapers and music.

And whether it turns a profit or not, media companies are being forced to respond…

Real Networks takes on Redmond

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Real Networks takes on Redmond
“NYT” report by John Markoff.

“SAN FRANCISCO, July 21 — In a significant challenge to Microsoft, RealNetworks plans to announce a new version of its software on Monday that can distribute audio and video in a range of formats, including Microsoft’s own proprietary Windows Media.

The new software is intended for large media companies and other corporations that need to send audio and video data to customers and employees in a variety of different formats. But RealNetworks acknowledged that it was possible that the company might incur Microsoft’s legal wrath.

Nevertheless, Rob Glaser, a former Microsoft executive who founded RealNetworks as Progressive Networks in 1994, said he believed the strategy was good for both Microsoft and consumers.”

More on digital photography — what happens when our attics are no longer full of shoeboxes of old snapshots?

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More on digital photography — what happens when our attics are no longer full of shoeboxes of old snapshots?

Interesting piece on BBC Online by Paul Rubens. Quote:

“The digital photos will still exist of course, though not as prints which can be dusted off and passed around. They will instead be collections of ones and zeros on various types of electronic storage media.

The problem is there will be no way to look at them. That’s because technology evolves so fast that any storage medium in use today is bound to become obsolete sooner or later. Finding the right equipment to retrieve digital images stored decades previously on obsolete media will become almost impossible.

In fact, it turns out that images stored electronically just 15 years ago are already becoming difficult to access. The Domesday Project, a multimedia archive of British life in 1986 designed as a digital counterpart to the original Domesday Book compiled by monks in 1086, was stored on laser discs.

The equipment needed to view the images on these discs is already very rare, yet the Domesday book, written on paper, is still accessible more than 1,000 years after it was produced. ”