Baby Steps

First and foremost, let’s all keep in mind this is a 1st generation product.  Yes, there are going to be flaws, and yes, there are going to be things that you’re not going to like about it.  From a consumer point of view, yeah, there are things missing from the product that we’d all like to see like multi-tasking or a built-in camera.  I can almost pretty much assure you that these features will eventually make their way into the iPad (e.g. third party apps, video recording, copy and paste for the iPhone)–hopefully by its second iteration.

However, let’s remember that Apple is a business.  It’s out to make a profit.  Microsoft for years has been trying to create a market for Tablet PCs.  For the most part it remains highly niche.  The biggest problem?  They tried to shoehorn a desktop operating system, all the power-hungry components and a UI that was designed for a mouse and keyboard into a tablet.  How many of you have picked up a Tablet PC thinking it was cool only to not be able to even “click” the Start button because the display didn’t recognize your finger?  Apple is reinventing the tablet experience to be touch-driven.  Hell, even ATMs can take a few lessons from Apple when it comes to a touch screen that “just works”.

Whether or not you care whether the iPad is just an over-sized iPod touch is irrelevant.  Everybody’s expectations were just a little too high for this gadget, but they weren’t far off the mark for what I believe Apple is planning to do.  This is just the first step.

Lack of a…

A decent name?  Yeah, yeah, get all of your MaxiPad jokes out of the way.  It’s a silly name, and it isn’t doing Apple any favors at the moment, but at some point the good folks at Apple’s marketing department felt that what they wanted to communicate with the product name outweighed a few weeks of iPad jokes.  Again, by this time next year, I fully expect that when someone cracks an iPad joke, they’re going to be looked upon as incredibly lame.  Just like how the Wii pee-pee jokes got old real fast.

Apple didn’t forget to include a camera.  (Frankly, I don’t see why people want a back facing camera.  It’s going to be rather silly for people to hold up a giant tablet to take a craptastic photo, but anyway…)  When it comes to certain features, the main consideration Apple has above any other is profit.  It may not cost them much, but an extra $5 bucks to throw into the cost of manufacturing does mean a lot when you’re building millions of them and when you’re trying to recoup your development costs.  That being said, when the price of some other component drops enough, Apple will likely throw a front-facing camera back in.  The same can be said about a lot of other features like GPS.

I fully expect a lot of other big gripes like multi-tasking to be rectified in iPhone OS 4.0 (as well as a name change Touch OS 4.0?).  Currently, the iPhone OS does multi-task certain applications, but for the most part, it’s a single application world.  I don’t think the big issue is battery life and performance as much as it is how do you manage your running apps.  The name “process manager” alone induces a cringe.  Back in the days when I had a PocketPC 2002, it literally pissed me off to find out that hitting the “X” didn’t actually close out an app, but rather, I would have to launch the freakin’ control panel and then a task manager to official turn off a memory and power-hungry app.

Apple has a history of not doing things unless it can do them really well.  I don’t know how multi-tasking is going to be done exactly, but I have a few ideas about how they will handle multiple apps.  Palm’s webOS does it in a pretty elegant way, but I suspect Apple will do probably involve the Home button and glowing icons somehow.

Maybe not for a few more years, but the whole 16 GB of storage thing is not going to be a huge issue.  Both Apple and Google are abstracting away the file system for the cloud.  How it will be done isn’t exactly clear, but I fully expect my music collection to be available streaming from somewhere up there.  And if American ISPs ever get any real competition, I may have my movie collection up there too.

Finally as far as gripes are concerned, you can forget about the following because it ain’t going to happen: USB port, HDMI out, smaller bevel, widescreen.  USB and HDMI will likely always be accessory only.  The only two good reasons I can think of when it comes to a USB port is connecting a camera or an external hard drive.  Both of these will eventually be solved with more ubiquitous use of wireless networking.  You’ll pull your photos off your camera over Bluetooth, and you’ll pull your movies, music and files to your iPad over Wi-Fi.  The bevel and widescreen do not bother me one bit.  John Gruber points out that the bevel is there so you don’t touch the screen when you have to hold the device. Furthermore, a widescreen tablet is only really comfortable in landscape mode.  After profit, Apple’s second biggest concern is design.  Jony Ive doesn’t think having all these ports and connectors on the side of your iPad is very pretty.

The End of Adobe Flash

I agree with Steve when he says that netbooks are pretty much cheap laptops.  Everything that you can do on a netbook, you’d rather do on a laptop except carry one around.  The haters and I are quick to point out that netbooks do Adobe Flash.  As an owner of a one Acer Aspire One netbook, I can tell you that Hulu sucks on a netbook.  It sucks bad.  Dropped frames all over the place, unresponsive UI, etc…  There’s no doubt that the next generation of Intel Atom processors will likely remedy this, but it does say a lot about Adobe Flash when I can open up a 720P H.264 video in VLC on my same netbook and get a full 30 FPS. If products like the iPhone and iPad continue to dominate mobile browsing, video providers are going to be forced to stream their videos in HTML 5.  (Mozilla, I’m looking at you to just bite the bullet and license H.264 for Firefox.  Use some of that sweet Google search money.)  That and I’m hoping Hulu releases an iPhone/iPad app soon!

Every One Will Have an iPad

The biggest complaint I’ve heard about the iPad is “What am I going to do with it?”  And that was the big problem that everyone was concerned about before the iPad was announced.  As cliché as it may sound, Apple is trying to create a “digital lifestyle” away from your desk.  Any one notice the couch Mr. Jobs was sitting on while demoing the unit?

Apple’s target with the iPad is paper. No more newspapers, just open up the New York Times app.  No more paper books, just open up the ePub version of The Bible.  No more boxes of photographs, just open up the photos app.  Everywhere that there is paper in your life, Apple wants you to use your iPad.  It’s not just a replacement; it’s an enhancement.  This paper is interactive; it’s connected; it plays videos; it plays games; it does a million things that app developers are going to come up with.  I especially see the iPad being incredibly useful for students.  Instead of carrying around 20 lbs worth of textbooks, this is the first real portable e-reader that makes sense from an educational point of view.  I’m hoping iBooks 2.0 will let you record voice notes and annotate passages.  This is/will definitely be the killer app in the education space.

At $499, it’s a little too expensive for a lot of people to jump on the bandwagon just yet and burn all their books, but it ain’t that much more expensive.  I am frankly amazed that Apple released the iPad for that price.  While I wasn’t expecting a $999 price point like most analysts, I was expecting something closer to the $799 or $699 range for an entry level model.  Apple generally has a history of releasing products at a high price and gouging early-adopters for two reasons: 1) It wants to make a lot of money. 2) It wants to create a sense that this is a premium product.  Usually, the last thing that Apple wants to do is create a sense that its products are a commodity.

For example, look at the netbook manufacturers.  Their margins are not high at all.  Apple probably makes the same amount of profit off selling one MacBook Pro as Asus does selling 10 Eee PCs.  Which product would you rather make?

The iPad seems to be different.  $499 says a few things about what Apple intends for this product though that are highly un-Apple-like.  First, they want every one to have one.  In a year’s time, I fully expect a $399 model.  In two year’s time, I expect a $299 model.  The iPod and the iPhone will all eventually be available for less than $199 and probably closer to $99.  By this time next year, the price and features will make more than enough sense for people in the market for a netbook.  More significantly at that price point, the iPad is priced just low enough for almost everyone to afford and for a lot of people to buy on impulse.

Where Are We Going

It’s hard to recognize revolution as you’re experiencing it, but looking back it becomes crystal clear.  The long-term view for Apple is that computing is a commodity product.  I know I said earlier that is the last thing that it wants for its products, but it’s inevitable.  At some point, $2,000 MacBook Pros and $3,000 Mac Pros aren’t going to make sense for anybody.  In ten years time, we’re all going to be editing high definition video on a machine we bought for $300 bucks.  Apple knows this, and it’s only going to be so long before Google and Microsoft catch up in the software arena when it comes to tolerable software.  In the meantime, Apple is going to try to build a business where its main goal is to connecting us to our media as seamlessly as possible.

The iPad is a big step in a new direction for Apple to get into content delivery.  Right now, Apple makes its money from selling devices, but at some point, content may end up being just as important. The iBookstore, the App Store, the iTunes Store may be break-even now, but as bandwidth gets cheaper, storage becomes practically free and people give in to the idea that buying something digital is just as real as buying something tangible, that 30% cut of everything is going to end up being a lot of money.  All this being said…

Apple is going to save the media industry so it can make even more money.

I was reading the HuffPo yesterday, and I saw this story about how “crazy” it is to have a bipartisan commission to reduce deficit spending and whatnot.  Most of it was a diatribe about how politicians are outsourcing their jobs and that this commission was just another bureaucracy.  I disagree.

Why do we have deficit spending in the first place?  Two real reason: 1) People don’t like to pay taxes (basis of Republican platform). 2) People, as much as they don’t like to admit it, like government services (basis of Democratic platform).  We like our clean air, relative peace and security, our social safety nets, our subsidized education; we just don’t want to pay for it.  Some politicians get elected for getting the government to help the people, and then other politicians get elected because we don’t like paying taxes for those services.

There’s just too many political pressures to have an equitable and balanced budget.  The few times that we have had a balanced budget in the last century were either because the party in power made a really hard decision to either reduce government spending or increase taxes (and then lost power) or the economy outgrew government spending, which increased tax revenues.

A Congressman is not likely to cut a 50 million dollar government program that provides jobs in his district if it means that the budget gets reduced 0.03%.  There aren’t enough moderates in either party, who will say I will take a 5% reduction in government spending for a 5% increase in tax revenues, that will cover a 10% hole in the budget.  And neither party wants to take the heat for raising the retirement age for Social Security, even though people are living a lot longer than they used to.  The 9/11 Commission seemed to work mostly, and maybe this one will.  It won’t solve all our problems, but it’s better than the political system we have now.  At the very least, it will give enough cover for politicians to go to their constituents and say, “It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s the best plan we could agree on.”

Translating the advantages into SAT scores, study author Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist, calculated that African-Americans who achieved 1150 scores on the two original SAT tests had the same chances of getting accepted to top private colleges in 1997 as whites who scored 1460s and Asians who scored perfect 1600s.

Granted my first emotion was to react in disgust, but setting my personal feelings aside and wondering about the greater good, I ask myself is this a good or a bad thing for society on the whole?   Extrapolating the results of this study, it says that if we were end racial considerations today, our high-end, elite educational institutions would consist almost entirely of rich Asian and white students.

Of course we want the best of the best, but is homogeny really worth the price?  On an individual level, I’m sure I would be furious if I were rejected for a less qualified candidate, but policy molds society.  We do have some part in deciding what kind of society we want to live in.  Schools most assuredly have a huge role in that process.

I have heard off hand before, “Oh, it’s because he’s Asian” or “You’re Asian; you must be good at math.” In some respects, I am proud.  My mom instilled in me a great need to continually improve my education.  Of course, this was usually under the threat of getting grounded or spanked if I brought home less than an  “A”.  At the same time, it has worked in my favor as well as against.  Asian Americans are not well known (outside of classical music) of being heavily involved in the creative arts, and I’m sure somewhere along the way someone noticed my last name in undergraduate (BFA), at some job and perhaps others other facets of life.

I can testify that being around people from many cultures has improved my education in so many ways.  It’s changed my world view and my approach to people and problem solving.  The problem with diversity is that it is hard to quantify without resorting to quotas and percentages.

So I was doing a little bit of research on Rep. Joseph Cao (R).  He was the lone Republican to vote for health care reform in the U.S. House of Representatives. The second article I found in Google after querying “joseph cao conservative” had this:

I will be totally honest with you. I am seriously starting to distrust those of eastern decent. I mean, first we had John Yoo, who gave President George W. Bush some very horrible advice during the war on terror, then we had Obama’s Energy Secretary telling us, that we should pay China back. I mean, I hate to say it, we have Michelle Malkin; who honestly, at times, be-clowns the Conservative movement with her writings. How do we not know that it is some sort of a plot to take over America? I am not saying that I totally believe that, but there are times, when I do really wonder about it. I mean, some of us have not forgotten about what happened on December 7, 1941 and what Truman did to end the war. How do we know that this is not some sort of revenge thing by the eastern bloc to get back at us for what happened? Is it a moral crime to wonder about these things? If so, Why?

I’m going to be a tiny bit presumptuous and speak for most East Asians.  If anybody was worried that we’ve been trying to get revenge for Hiroshima by getting American health care reform passed…

Yes, we are.  We have meetings every third Tuesday of every month.  Our plan is to become U.S. citizens, study hard, work in our parents’ Asian restaurants/laundry mats/beauty salons, get into positions of power, win a Nobel Prize, and then win special elections where the Democrat challengers who have refrigerators full of money.  Then cast the non-deciding vote.  You caught us.  The Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans gave up three millennia of fighting with each to enact a century old plan to get universal health care passed.  We thought the massive number of SAT prep books would have been the original clue.

UPDATE: I think the original writer deleted his blog post.

UPDATED AGAIN: Found the Google cached version. ]]> http://www.wilsontang.com/2009/11/wow-east-asians-are-conspiring-to-end-white-america/feed/ 1 http://www.wilsontang.com/2009/11/safe-harbor-for-net-neutrality/ http://www.wilsontang.com/2009/11/safe-harbor-for-net-neutrality/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:31:01 +0000 rhapsodyartist http://www.wilsontang.com/?p=30

Lately, I’ve been having a number of conversations about net neutrality with libertarians and conservatives, who align themselves with total anti-regulation philosophy.  Not to get to get into too much caricature, but most of the arguments seem to be that net neutrality is either the new “fairness doctrine” or just another attempt at more government intervention in our lives.  They fear an Internet, where you’ll have to reveal your party registration in order to post a comment on a blog.  Sadly, this is just a case of grossly misunderstanding what the debate about network neutrality is about.

Partly, this misunderstanding is because net neutrality itself isn’t well defined.  Most of us pro-net neutrality supporters agree that ISPs should have “reasonable network management practices.” More on that later.  In the meantime, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has outlined a number of principles, which I for one agree with preliminarily.  For the next few months, the FCC will be taking public comments before they turn these principles into actual rules.

But back to the debate, this controversy for or against net neutrality is fundamentally about the role of government in our lives.  Does the government have a role in regulating communications over pipes that ISPs built and manage themselves?  Yes and no.  I do not subscribe to a black and white view of the role of government.  I believe there is plenty bad as well as plenty good that the government has, can and will do in our lives.  Balance, the middle path and pragmatism is what I subscribe to.

Let’s be honest about this debate.  Absolutely nobody is asking that the government censor and monitor all communications on the Internet.  (I’m pretty sure they already do monitor the Internet to some extent, but again that’s something else.)  Net neutrality is not about having a conservative counterpoint for every point a liberal makes.  At the same time, the libertarian view that the free market should dictate all the rules that govern the Internet grossly simplifies a complex debate and ignores the realities of externalities, which will arise from a purely free market solution.

First, government doesn’t entirely screw things up.  (It does screw up a lot of things but let’s give it some credit.)  Let’s remember that the Internet is an off-shoot of DARPA, a government program that was initially started so that the defense network could still communicate in case a large portion of the network were destroyed in a nuclear war.  TCP/IP were developed for the government for use on ARPANET.  When the government declared that TCP/IP was the standard for military networking, it became the de facto standard for sending information over the Internet.  In essence, it was the birth of the Internet’s plumbling and entirely government decreed.  Today, ISPs enjoy plenty of unnatural, un-market-driven government intervention.  I’ll get to that in a second.

Next, let’s remember that we’re talking about two entirely different aspects of the Internet: the content and the transmission.  Net neutrality is not about content.  Post whatever you want.  It’s about the transmission.  Most supporters of net neutrality would agree that we just want to be able to transmit whatever unharmful data we’d like.  How much of that data is another but related debate.

The transmission of data is fundamentally and physically limited to the wires that run from your computer and through the walls.  Most consumers only have only one or two options to access high-speed broadband Internet.  The broadband market naturally doesn’t really exist for consumers.  For example, I only have a SINGLE broadband provider in my apartment building.  I cannot choose among a litany of ISPs, nor can I choose to leave my service.  I’m stuck in this market failure.

So what to do?

I propose a compromise: ISPs who want to police and regulate their networks should lose DMCA safe harbor protection.  Who-na-what-na?

The crux of the libertarian argument against network neutrality is that ISPs, which have built their own networks, poured money into their operations and manage their operations day-to-day, should have the final say on what crosses their transmission lines.  ISPs after all are responsible for how their networks behave.  That’s fine as long as they are responsible for how their networks misbehave.  Currently, ISPs in the United States are indemnified against actions of their users.  AT&T can’t be held responsible if one of its customers launches a DDoS attack against a Verizon customer.  Comcast can’t be held responsible if one of its customers hosts child pornography on its network.  Time Warner is not responsible if a terrorist uses its network to contact another terrorist.  ISPs love their safe harbor protection.  They want to police their networks and not have any responsibility.

Well, I propose that they can’t have their cake and eat it too.  On the flip side, if ISPs agree to network neutrality (i.e. open access to all applications, reasonable network management practices, promise not to filter content on their networks or degrade web applications), then they get all the indemnification they want.

As far as reasonable network management is concerned, I’m not sure how to formulate that into enforceable law or regulation, but in general, I want a ISP to throttle BitTorrent traffic so that it doesn’t kill my connection to Hulu.  Lord, have I cursed the residents in my building for pirating the latest Wolverine movie while I watched the latest episode of Family Guy.  I want a ISP to filter out a DDoS attack against my favorite website.  I do not want them to degrade access to Facebook because they struck a deal with MySpace or block access to Skype because they want me to buy their VoIP phone service. ]]> http://www.wilsontang.com/2009/11/safe-harbor-for-net-neutrality/feed/ 2 http://www.wilsontang.com/2008/06/i-think-i-know-what-im-talking-about-imax/ http://www.wilsontang.com/2008/06/i-think-i-know-what-im-talking-about-imax/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:54:52 +0000 rhapsodyartist http://www.wilsontang.com/?p=29 So last week, I went to Reuters headquarters in grand ole Time Square to shoot a media hit about the analog to digital transition for IMAX and what it means for the company and the industry. Kind of boring stuff for most normal people; kind of interesting for us nerds/movie enthusiasts. Please don’t laugh too hard at me.

On a side note, I could not for the life of me figure out how to embed this video onto my Facebook profile.  There’s a button and whatnot to share on new social media, but for me, it does nothing.  I cry a little inside.  Maybe my blog post will fair better?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhHxVO6SgA8&ap=%2526fmt%3D18[/youtube]

If you have the option, please switch it over to high quality.  It’ll be much more enjoyable.  I promise.  Here’s the link.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODHNqdZouYM&ap=%2526fmt%3D18[/youtube]

I wish I could speak English properly.

Don’t know how this is going to affect Loaded or The 404, but maybe it’s a good opportunity for growth in those properties.  Natali Del Conte is just excited to be working in the same company as 60 Minutes.  Keep you posted.

I am thoroughly impressed–not that I ever had any doubts.  Demetrius Wren’s first full length play, Legends, Myths and Hieroglyphs is a resounding success!  It is a partly-autobiographical story about the life and imagination of Jarod, a young African American boy growing up in Mississippi.  He is raised by his “Grandmumma”, and when literally left to his devices, he conjurs up a time machine on which his “mission” is to save the world.  As delightful as it might sound, the story is tragic and biting.

His mother hasn’t spoken or seen Jarod in months.  His father secretly visits him as a stranger to drop off parts for his time machine.  And when his “cousin” Deon comes to stay for a few days, things unravel at their seams.  Jarod’s fantasty world collapses, and we begin to see how all things beautiful are destroyed by an endless cycle of fatherless and motherless black homes.

The play is a workshop and work-in-progress.  There are beats that go missed and opportunities to pull the audience one way that are glossed over, but considering the company, Mainspring Collective, has only had three weeks to put together this show, it can all be looked over.  The actor who plays Deon is truly impressive.  His performance is by far the most believable and has an incredible amount of depth.  I suspect he has the fewest lines of almost any character in the whole play!  Playing multiple parts, his performance as Kayla’s brother shows how remarkably diverse this actor can be.  I truly look forward to seeing him again in other pieces.

All in all, the ending is one of the best crafted scenes I’ve seen performed on stage.  It’s simply, understated but OVERWHELMINGLY powerful.  For those of you who have been exposed to single motherhood, growing up poor or simply growing up black in the South, you will struggle to hold your composure throughout the performance.  There are moments when the show is too true to life and this is where it is beautiful.

The workshop of Legends started on Friday, May 9th, and runs through Tuesday, May 13th.  Tickets are available at the box office of the The Producer’s Club at 44th St and 9th Ave in New York City for $20.  Show starts at 8 p.m.

See this play!

Full disclosure: Demetrius Wren is one of my very best friends.  We both went to Florida State University together in the Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts program.  And after seeing this play, we intend to adapt it into a feature length script.  And no matter what, shoot the film!

This is from a whlie ago, but I thought it would be fun to post in my blog.  A few months ago, my fellow coworker and friend Caroline McCarthy decided to send in my picture along with a couple of other CNET employee’s pics to Boinkology.  The website is devoted to dating, sex and relationships.  It’s the same picture I use in the About Me section on my site.  It’s not the most serious picture I’ve ever taken, but I’ll admit, I think it’s fun.  According to the powers that be, I’m a suprising 8 out of 10.  I’ve never thought of my self as a good looking guy, but hey Lux Alptraum seems to think I am, and she writes for Fleshbot (NSFW) too!

“Wilson Tang Co-host of The 404 podcast, Wilson’s known for being a suave aZn with a sexy voice — and, from what we hear, a way with the ladies. When he’s not talking tech or making women swoon, he can be found working his way towards a career directing films. All in all, he’s quite a catch: Wilson, we’d let you captain our S.S. Fantasy any day of the week! Hotness: 8/10″

For more CNET employee hotness, take a look at the post.  As a side note, I think Jeff Bakalar is a much hotter guy than the picture gives him credit for.  [And yes, I just ended that sentence in a preposition.  And what?]

At its core, it’s a standard three-act story with standard plot-twists. The key, however, is the excellent execution. The film knows it caters to a younger demographic and never veers into outright cheese but more a tacit acknowledgment. I’m most impressed with Andrew Adamson. His only previous live action film was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, but you would never know from watch Prince Caspian. He previously directed the Shrek films and won an Oscar for the first film’s incarnation. Before the ogre-movies, he was a visual effects supervisor, and his directing style really shows the amount of care in realism he tries to bring to the numerous CG characters. He knows when to show and reveal information, and most importantly, he has the right sense of timing when it comes to how long moments should linger and how tension should build.

Moving on, I visited Adamson at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel at Columbus Circle today, and spoke to him briefly for CNET TV.  I asked him the standard fare of technology and cinema-related questions, and he surprised me when he said that he thought there was a lack of integration between the production department and the interactive gaming departments in these multimillion dollar films.  While they share computer models and whatnot, the gaming department would sometimes get to scenes before he would.

Anna Popplewell, who played Susan Pevensie in the film, mentioned how much fun it was to make all the sound effects for the videogame coming out for the film.  William Moseley (Peter Pevensie) loves Grand Theft Auto IV.  And finally Ben Barnes, who plays the title character of Prince Caspian, says he only gets a big head when he sees the giant looming billboards featuring his mug around town.  All in all, they were a down to earth cast and clearly tired after an exhausting three day press junket.

Check back later for my CNET TV package and possibly the full interviews.  No guarantees.  In the meantime, enjoy the trailer.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=VqzYukVDqy4[/youtube]

Of My God is a semi-autobiographical film about an immigrant Chinese family.  When the father dies unexpectedly, the mother has to raise two children in a country where she doesn’t speak the language.

http://shortfilm.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/baby-blues/