Ah, the intractable problem of getting internet-delivered video onto your television: with the advent of the Boxee Box, Google TV, and Apple TV, I think we can safely say it’s not primarily a technical issue any longer.  I’ve recently had the opportunity to try out the new Apple TV device, and in my opinion, this little thing gets an awful lot right – except the content, that is.  ABC, CBS, NBC, and any number of basic cable networks have been unable to come to an agreement regarding the licensing of full episodes to Apple.  What they have made available are short promo clips of their shows – essentially, commercials for content only accessible via traditional cable or (in the case of the broadcast networks) over-the-air DTV.

In other words, it’s the networks’ intention to use Apple TV to encourage users to turn off their Apple TV.

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“Engineers remain the ‘movie stars’ of the electronics industry” – Sony CEO Howard Stringer

Although the quote’s a year or two old now, the bloated remote for Sony’s new Google TV would suggest that the culture of engineer-knows-best is still firmly in place over at Sony.  And that’s a shame, because even a cursory comparison of Sony’s and, say, Apple’s performance over the past few years would suggest that engineers may in fact not be the ‘movie stars’ of the electronics industry.

Engineers, it turns out, are the engineers of the electronics industry – and while crucial to the technology involved, should be kept out of the room when it comes time to do consumer electronics user interface design…

…or you end up with TV remotes that look like this.

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I apologize! For once I have a truly time-sensitive post and now I am eight days late!

Yup! Eight days ago, on 10/10/10 your clock struck 10:10:10. Did you even notice?

To be exact, I am 196 hours behind posting this, precisely marking when at least New York and the rest of the EST time zone experienced this somewhat unique time date combination.

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I used to write music for television commercials (my contribution to society – you’re welcome).  After spending a few years doing that, one tends to accumulate a fair amount of unused music: demos, abandoned sketches, projects done ‘on spec’, etc. – so a few years ago, I decided to have an internet-enabled yard sale of these orphaned recordings by registering them with a few of the growing number of music licensing companies out there.

The practice of making preexisting music available for use in the production of commercials, television, and film is pretty common these days – think stock photography, only for for music (in fact, one of the major players in music licensing is a subsidiary of Getty Images, the industry-leading stock photography firm).

Every now and then, one of the companies I signed up with sends me a royalty statement – it’s not usually a lot of money, but it’s paid for a few vacations – and since the statements include a schedule of where and each track is being used, I’ve been able to keep tabs on things.  And that’s how I found out my music’s ended up on YouTube – 5000 videos and counting (and those are just the searchable ones mentioning me by name)…




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