Have you seen If I Can Dream? If not, check it out. Now (ok, after you read this post ). It’s a feat to be admired, showing what can be done when we think big and work hard to execute. Thanks to Tim Nolan at FITC for blogging about his experiences being involved in the project and turning my attention to such a great experience.
Ok, so what is it? Well, it’s basically an online reality show on steriods. The kind of steroids that would make you Mr./Mrs. Olympia in one dose. It’s not your typical 3 girls in a house broadcasting their intimate moments via webcam. It’s simultaneous video and audio capture, multi-streaming, HD, with a beautiful 3D-like interface, and strategically placed, non-intrusive advertising laced in. It’s an all-digital reality show that runs 24/7, is showcased on MySpace, and let’s anyone with a Hollywood dream submit their own audition tape to get into the house. And the cast definitely don’t have faces made for radio. Oh, and it’s the first show available for viewing on Hulu outside the U.S..
From a technology perspective, Tim put the challenge this way…
The idea was to transfer the Reality TV concept successfully to the Internet. The challenge was… How the f*ck are we going to do this? I mean how do you stream HD quailty video from every angle in the house that TV producer would want to see, how do you rig up all the mics to capture every conversation… In short, how do you make a physical house in Hollywood an all digital, always on 24/7 model for the tech house of the future?
Congrats to the guys at POKE and Entertainment 19. Check out these screen shots, then if you want to marvel at the technology or the cast head on over to the site and have fun.
The battle keeps raging and we all wait and speculate as to whether Apple will indeed keep up the fight and not support Flash on the iPhone/iPad. Well, their fight just got a bit harder for two reasons;
#1 According to Mike Chambers (Abode Principal Product Manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform) Microsoft is working with Adobe to support Flash on Win 7 phones and
#2 Flash is running beautifully on Android, and it’s not a simple game it’s Tunevision, a very impressive jukebox in the palm of your had. NewTeeVee has a nice write-up and I’ve re-posted the demo video below.
The real significance here is three-fold:
1. Flash is running beautifully on the iPhone’s #1 competitor, and in the plans of another
2. Flash is running well
3. Tunevision is running in the browser! That means develop once, not a version for Android, Apple, RIM
Of course, we’ll have to wait until Flash 10.1 is officially released and can get our hands on it but if nothing else, it makes the argument that Flash is a mobile lag a lot harder to make.
I will change the web...or just sell you books! Photo: AFP/Getty
…it just has to. Yesterday Jobs and Co. presented the iPad as the ultimate web surfing device; something that will change the way we interact with the Web. That’s great! Can’t wait to go to all my favorite sites and let my fingers do the talking…movie sites, rich magazines, amazing design studios, and games! I’ll be able to touch and move my way around all my favorite sites and applications in a flash….ya, Flash…
All the great creative, visual effects, online movies, and virtual goodness we enjoy? Mostly all Flash (sorry Silverlight). It’s all over the Web and without it we’d mostly have just text and pictures, want to go back to that? Flash brings the web to life…and it’s coming to mobile in a big way this year.
Here’s my theory, when the iPad ships it will support Flash and Multi-tasking…and so will the iPhone…for three reasons:
1. You can’t enjoy the Web without it
2. Android, Blackberry, and Nokia will all support Flash this year. The iPhone will support Flash or be left out of the party (plus developers will get on the iPhone with Flash CS5 anyway)
3. Everyone wants to multi-task on their computer and increasingly on their phone. Android supports it so iPhone has to.
Multi-Tasking is a must-have. Do you listen to music on your computer while surfing the Web? Do you have e-mail, a browser, and a document open at the same time? We all do, and we will want to do the same thing on our beautiful iPad. With the iPhone you’re mobile and usually doing something ‘at the moment’. Sitting on the couch with your iPad means you want to be able to do a few things and not only have one app open at a time. Any sane person knows that multi-tasking is a must have, and my bet is the iPad will support this for sure.
The distant future might see promise in HTML5 and the web moving away from plug-ins, but it’s not a gauranteed bet – remember how DHTML and VRML were supposed to change the Web? IS Flash really just a plug-in when it’s on 98% of computers out there? Plus, we need to get away from system dependent technology. We went through this with the early browser wars when you had to develop for Netscape or IE or Mozilla, and now we have the same thing on mobile. That’s got to change. We want to develop once and go everywhere (Flash isn’t the only way to that but it will be the easiest).
….or is it really all about just selling books?
There’s only one reason I can think of that the iPad won’t support Flash or Multi-tasking…Apple only cares about sell books. Reading is a dedicated activity (you don’t multi0task when you read). So, could be that the real big announcement yesterday wasn’t the iPad, it was iBooks. Remember, Apple’s game is to make it easy for you to get content across all their devices; Macbook, iPod, iPhone, iPad – doesn’t matter. Device money is great but the content brings in the mountains of recurring cash.
By most accounts, iTunes dominates as the place to get (legal) online music and TV programs. The next biggest thing is books and magazines. All the hoopla about being the ultimate web surfing device is great but it might be that the focus is really to own and make money from more of our cultural activities…music succeeded, TV failed (Apple TV), books is the next big prize (games will follow).
So, well find out in April if the way we use the Web is really going to change or if the iPad is really a land grab to sell books. I hope it’s the former because it really would change our digital lives.
Have you seen If I Can Dream? If not, check it out. Now (ok, after you read this post 
). It’s a feat to be admired, showing what can be done when we think big and work hard to execute. Thanks to Tim Nolan at FITC for blogging about his experiences being involved in the project and turning my attention to such a great experience.
Posted by Jaafer Haidar 
