Hah... actually, a recent visit to an expo held in the Good Hope Centre, Cape Town, showed an electronic tot machine that automatically pours your drink. Wanna beer? Visit Dockside, South Africa - there are beer vending machines all over the place. That's really not such a far off idea, especially in crowded clubs n pubs.
It's not representative of Hollywood studios. In the US, when last has anyone actually watched a film produced from a different country? I mean really? In the UK, as in many European countries, the governments tend to have major input in regulating the [film] industry. Apart from standard censorship excises ordered by various film factions and bodies (which, incidentally, are more viciously imposed in the land of the "Free" -the Matrix Reloaded was given a R-rating, while in most Eu countries it has a 16 or even 13 restriction, with slight violence warnings), the UK government has a ratio system in place that requires at least 51% of entertainment film content to be European. It's not uncommon that European governments contest companies thwarting industries to become giant monopolies - unlike their US counterparts, that tackle monopoly problems when it's too late.
The average cost for a hollywood film ranges between 12 million US$ and 26 million $US (usually excluding major cast costing). The average UK film production costs between 3 million US$ and 10 million US$, so it's clear the major beneficiaries on cost would be the UK and Eu film industry if easyCinema is successful. Filmmakers rejoice when volumes of people watch their handiwork, the first rule in show business is always: the more viewers the merrier. The US tend to negate that in exchange for the more cash, the better.
So whether you're for it or not, this is a branding exercise - more people will be able to see films. If you're against monopolies, vote against, if you're for cheap screening of films, vote for it. Who cares if it's a wanker pushing the limits. That just adds to the existing wankers that's been doing that for who knows how long.
This is really the core of the train of thought in Africa. Most of the central African governments are looking at 802.11 type net access as a cheap alternative to putting in expensive infrastructure like telephone lines.
In South Africa it's even more interesting: there is a definite shove in getting broadband net access working - and working well. In fact, the recent de-monopolising of the Telecoms Company Telkom has finally opened the door for broadband.
The key advantage, however, is somewhat ironic - in fact, the reason is simply that Africa does not have any decent infrastructure to begin with, this makes it easier to climb in with the leading pack and use leading technology from the start.
The problem with 802.11 is however that it is unreliable. I've had the opportunity of working with a few wireles net-frastructures using 802.11 to connect a multitude of willing volunteers to various wireless wans and lans. Unfortunately, the best uptime stats we had was around 89%, comparable to the 99.9% uptime we enjoyed with one of Africa's biggest ISPs namely iAfrica.
African countries have been connecting rather well to the net over the last few years, and doing so beneath the radar for the most part. It however will most likely not become the multi-million dollar industry like it is in the western world, but the key importance of connectivity in remote African cities and Towns is not to establish capitalistic approaches, but rather bring vital services to poverty stricken people, and offer them the opportunities that many dream the Internet still carry.
Recently I visited a very poor school where the classrooms were the great outdoors and they had one blackboard to share with several teachers. Some students were older than the teachers. The amazing thing was when I saw these kids faces when they saw a pictures of Africa and the rest of the planet we downloaded off the net via Satellite shown onto a makeshift projector screen.
Stories like this should not surprise people. What surprises me is that people in the western world still think us Africans ride lions and chase each other with spears. Africa is poor, but their is a lot of technological knowledge about. And we have that one advantage...
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Hah... actually, a recent visit to an expo held in the Good Hope Centre, Cape Town, showed an electronic tot machine that automatically pours your drink. Wanna beer? Visit Dockside, South Africa - there are beer vending machines all over the place. That's really not such a far off idea, especially in crowded clubs n pubs.
It's not representative of Hollywood studios. In the US, when last has anyone actually watched a film produced from a different country? I mean really? In the UK, as in many European countries, the governments tend to have major input in regulating the [film] industry. Apart from standard censorship excises ordered by various film factions and bodies (which, incidentally, are more viciously imposed in the land of the "Free" -the Matrix Reloaded was given a R-rating, while in most Eu countries it has a 16 or even 13 restriction, with slight violence warnings), the UK government has a ratio system in place that requires at least 51% of entertainment film content to be European. It's not uncommon that European governments contest companies thwarting industries to become giant monopolies - unlike their US counterparts, that tackle monopoly problems when it's too late.
The average cost for a hollywood film ranges between 12 million US$ and 26 million $US (usually excluding major cast costing). The average UK film production costs between 3 million US$ and 10 million US$, so it's clear the major beneficiaries on cost would be the UK and Eu film industry if easyCinema is successful. Filmmakers rejoice when volumes of people watch their handiwork, the first rule in show business is always: the more viewers the merrier. The US tend to negate that in exchange for the more cash, the better.
So whether you're for it or not, this is a branding exercise - more people will be able to see films. If you're against monopolies, vote against, if you're for cheap screening of films, vote for it. Who cares if it's a wanker pushing the limits. That just adds to the existing wankers that's been doing that for who knows how long.
This is really the core of the train of thought in Africa. Most of the central African governments are looking at 802.11 type net access as a cheap alternative to putting in expensive infrastructure like telephone lines.
In South Africa it's even more interesting: there is a definite shove in getting broadband net access working - and working well. In fact, the recent de-monopolising of the Telecoms Company Telkom has finally opened the door for broadband.
The key advantage, however, is somewhat ironic - in fact, the reason is simply that Africa does not have any decent infrastructure to begin with, this makes it easier to climb in with the leading pack and use leading technology from the start.
The problem with 802.11 is however that it is unreliable. I've had the opportunity of working with a few wireles net-frastructures using 802.11 to connect a multitude of willing volunteers to various wireless wans and lans. Unfortunately, the best uptime stats we had was around 89%, comparable to the 99.9% uptime we enjoyed with one of Africa's biggest ISPs namely iAfrica.
African countries have been connecting rather well to the net over the last few years, and doing so beneath the radar for the most part. It however will most likely not become the multi-million dollar industry like it is in the western world, but the key importance of connectivity in remote African cities and Towns is not to establish capitalistic approaches, but rather bring vital services to poverty stricken people, and offer them the opportunities that many dream the Internet still carry.
Recently I visited a very poor school where the classrooms were the great outdoors and they had one blackboard to share with several teachers. Some students were older than the teachers. The amazing thing was when I saw these kids faces when they saw a pictures of Africa and the rest of the planet we downloaded off the net via Satellite shown onto a makeshift projector screen.
Stories like this should not surprise people. What surprises me is that people in the western world still think us Africans ride lions and chase each other with spears. Africa is poor, but their is a lot of technological knowledge about. And we have that one advantage...