Category Archives: MACC

Uli on learning

Uli Kusterer: They’ll die out eventually…:

Just like people in the original Mac days thought users would not understand keyboards, I hear people today saying that users will never understand multi-tasking, will never understand what an ‘application’ or an ‘app’ or a ‘web site’ are, and how they differ and how they are the same.

Worth remembering: people learn. Think how fast the web was adopted. Think how fast cell phones went from nothing to everywhere. Very young children know how to install apps from the App Store.

As a species, humans are incredibly resourcesful and adaptable — that’s the key to our success. And today most of our problems come from way too much success. Which is a good problem to have (better than the alternative, at least).

So anyone who’s worried that people won’t be able to learn new things should just stop worrying. For humans in general, learning new things is as natural and happy-making as sunlight.

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(Via inessential.com.)

This Week at DVMUG

This Week at DVMUG: “”

(Via .)

À la carte cable programming comes to Roku for the first time

Betanews
January 17, 2011 5:14 PM
by Tim Conneally

À la carte cable programming comes to Roku for the first time

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Roku XDS

Roku’s streaming set-top box has been an unequivocal success for the “over the top” content industry, bringing streaming video on demand to millions of homes. Today, Roku announced it has gotten its first “port” of a cable channel in its channel store: WealthTV.

When I say “port,” I mean users who tune into the WealthTV channel on their Roku set top box will see the same thing that WealthTV is broadcasting to its cable partners.

Now, irrespective of their Internet provider, users will be able to add WealthTV for $2.99 per month.

“Fans that can’t get our network from their local video provider can now enjoy our…programming lineup via Roku,” said Robert Herring, Sr., founder and CEO of WealthTV. “We’ve received a large volume of consumer requests to expand our distribution to connected devices, and this deployment will let us gauge the acceptability and viability of alternative distribution methods for our traditional cable feed.”

Whether or not you are interested in the content, it is a true example of a la carte linear programming, something that has thus far been frowned upon by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, and one of the great possibilities offered by over-the-top content distribution.

Sent from my iPhone 4 by Michael

Posted via email from mclasen’s posterous

Extinct Mammoth, Coming To a Zoo Near You

Oh oh, saw that movie…

Slashdot
January 15, 2011 4:31 PM
by timothy

Extinct Mammoth, Coming To a Zoo Near You

Techmeology writes “Professor Akira Iritani of Kyoto University plans to use recent developments in cloning technology to give life to the currently extinct woolly mammoth. Although earlier efforts in the 1990s were unsuccessful due to damage caused by extreme cold, Professor Iritani believes he can use a technique pioneered by Dr Wakayama (who successfully cloned a frozen mouse) to overcome this obstacle. This technique will enable Professor Iritani to identify viable cell nuclei, and transfer them to egg cells of an African elephant which will carry the mammoth for a 600 day pregnancy.”