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GoogleTV Coming Soon?
An anonymous reader writes "Flexbeta writes that Google is looking to hire a full time project manager for GoogleTV in Mountain View, CA. The candidate must posses experience developing/launching products in one or more of the following areas: interactive TV, set-top-boxes, personal video recorders, video-on-demand, IP TV or cable TV technologies. Google recently announced their interest in the text messaging market by releasing GoogleTalk; this came to no surprise to many that were already hearing rumors month's before GoogleTalk was released. Google is also working on providing free WiFi service to some regions of the San Francisco bay area. Google is without a doubt expanding their operations beyond the search engine market which makes the possibility of GoogleTV realistic. "
I wonder if this station would be over-the-air or over-the-net?
Given their popularity and success of almost everything else they're launched, if they were to launch an on-line tv station with quality content I think they'd have a real shot to be in line with other major networks in a short while.
They are trying to put as many eggs in as many different baskets as they can, can't say that I blame them. If they just stuck with search engine profits they might have a similar .com era fall out.
Google appears to have added their name to a frequent (seems coutinuous to me) segment on Al Gore's new "Current" network. It's been running for at least a week now.
"Google is without a doubt expanding their operations beyond the search engine market which makes the possibility of GoogleTV realistic."
Other than the fact that absolutley no one should be surprised by this...
Search engines are not Google's market. Search engines are Google's clients' market. Google sells advertising, and search engines are one of their delivery mechanisms. Previously on Slashdot, Google print ads have been discussed.
It's really just horizontal expansion. Online advertising, print advertising, and now television (and you can bet they'll be delivering ads) -- what about radio?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
DRM is not inheritantly evil. Unreasonably restrictive DRM is evil.
I have no problem with iTune's Fairplay implementation, and I have every confidence that Google would be able to come up with something just as good in terms of comprimise between the content producer and the consumer.
DRM is evil. It controls how the consumer can use what they've fairly bought. It makes it more difficult for other artists to sample and extend works. It makes it less likely that content will still be accessible to future generations.
If not evil then at least short-sighted and selfish.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Imgaine the scroll on the cable news networks, but on all channels and filled with ads related to what you're watching. Or maybe Google keeps track of what you watch and delivers ads based on that. Or maybe, you'll be able to order up shows on-demand and get Google inserted ads.
try http://stimtvmusic.com/ instead.
A good DRM scheme is one where the consumer's ability to use the work in the manner they wish isn't impacted while the ability to simply redistribute millions of copies is curtailed.
iTunes' implementation of Fairplay is such a system in my eyes. Yes, the AAC files are protected. But you can authorize up to five computers to play them, you can stream the music over the network, you can even reduce the quality of the file by burning it to CD and then re-ripping it into a DRM'less version.
As many people bitch about the fact that the music industry not adapting to the new age of digital (which I whole heartedly agree with), a lot people still seem stuck in the whole "Tape" generation of thinking where copies weren't detrimental because they never came close to the quality of the original. That isn't true anymore and you need to stop acting as if it were. Unauthorized copies, while not as a horrible threat as the suits want to make it seem, are a problem.
It doesn't take a white beard and half a century of experience in the world to realize that anytime you have a setup that depends on everyone playing along, a setup where one person can screw it up for the rest of us, that not only is that person going to exist but they are going to make it their goal in life to screw it up just to be an A-hole.
Your goals should not be to stamp out DRM but to work to find a setup where both sides of the equation feel as if they have gotten a fair trade out of the deal.
Who defines "unreasonable". You can bet it will be them, and not you.
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Google has a relationship with Current TV (Al Gore's TV company), and a spot called "Google Current" that airs on a regular basis.
6 20_0_4_0_C for one example. Or, do a Google search for "Google Current TV" Just don't look for details on Eric Schmidt at the same time ;-)
This could be a more formal solidification of the relationship, or hiring for someone to manage the relationship, or I guess it could be something altogether new. Certainly Current TV isn't 100% full of non-repeating content, so there is some room for Google to take more of their broadcast time.
See:
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=9
Your first statement contradicts your second. If AAC files are of lesser quality than a CD, then converting them to CD to be able to play them where ever (which iTunes allows) would not reduce the quality of the file.
If AAC files are of a greater quality then a CD, then your first argument that you are paying the same price as a CD is meaningless.
The fact of the matter is iTunes DOES allow you to burn to CD. So anytime you wish to remove the DRM, you can do so. And if you truly wished to do so, you could even use a program such as Playfair or Hymn to allow you to remove the DRM without converting the file in anyway whatsoever.
People who complain about something as lax as iTunes' version of Fairplay are the ones who are never going to 'get it'.
The WHOLE point of copyrights was to assure the author that their works would not be stolen enmass as soon as they were released. In the world before digital, this was fairly simple. Copies were either guaranteed to be of lesser quality than the original or would require so much effort to create that there were few who would find the work and risk of punishment worth doing.
That is NO LONGER TRUE. Anyone can rip off a work if it's not protected and just as the RIAA has unwittingly proven, there is no way you can possibly catch everyone doing it once it gets to that point.
You need to wake up and realize, just as the music and movie industries need to, that the world has changed and sitting there bitching about how it's so unfair that they expect you to compromise is the equivalent of the RIAA sitting around bitching about how the internet is killing the music industry.
You are both stuck in the old world analog view of life.
DRM is the compromise the consumer makes to have available to them a quality digital version of a work. Without DRM, there is no incentive for the artist to provide the digital version, as DRM'less digital versions can be immediately redistributed.
If there is no incentive without DRM then there should also be no incentive with it. Because DRM is a myth.
DRM only restricts people who own legally obtained copies from using them in non-approved manners. It can do nothing to prevent people with illegally obtained copies from using or distributing the work. Furthermore, it can do nothing to prevent people who have legally obtained copies from converting them to non-DRM form.
This is because unbreakable DRM is theoretically impossible. Every DRM scheme ever created has been broken shortly after it became widely used, and once a single person breaks the DRM on a work then you are back to where you started.
Therefore, the restrictions enforced by DRM are inherently limited to those who chose to obey the law to begin with, while it is no barrier those who choose to infringe on copyright.
DRM is compromise - a compromise where the consumer agrees to give up his fair-use rights, the electronic companies agree to complicate thier products, and in return none of the parties, media producer included, get anything of value in return.
Sorry, but that is not the kind of compromise that I want to make.
Which goes double for something like a set-top box. Which has to appeal to dozens of cable companies and millions of cable customers. That means it had better not be just a collection of features! What features it has had all better contribute to the box's usefulness, and not conflict with each other, and be easy to use.
Google shows no sign of being able to do that. They just push out features and apps that appear to be whatever their people feel like working on. Consider Google Map: it's a great piece of software, still one of the best AJAX applications around. But nobody seems to be working on getting rid of the rough edges. When new versions appear, they do fancy things like display street-satellite overlays. Which is terribly cool, but doesn't excuse the fact that they haven't done the basic boring work the Mapquest did in their very first release.
What Google seems to do is hire lots of brilliant people and mostly let them do what they want. So everybody works on the cool stuff, and the boring basics that make for real products get neglected. At any other company that would be a recipe for disaster. (I've worked at places where it was.) Google gets away with it because their AdWord revenue guarantees enough income to keep the lights on, and their weird stock structure guarantees that they can spend money without a lot of investor meddling.
Right now, somebody's saying,"Hey, they're making a lot of money, what's wrong with that?" Not a thing. As long as you remember that the kind of organization they've chosen to be has its limitations. And I think that doing a basic consumer product, like a set-top box, is well beyond those limitations.