Scott Adams

Deadlines, process and urgency

BOO! Plastic Monopoly money

Link: Monopoly ditches cash, goes plastic - Engadget.

Monopoly ditches cash, goes plastic Posted Jul 24th 2006 9:55PM by Darren Murph Filed under: Household While Monopoly is the paragon of good 'ole fashioned board game fun, the "old fashioned" part had to go. Parker Brothers is phasing out the cash-based version's funmoney and replacing it with an "Electronic Banking" flavor that could leave Mr. Moneybags turning his pockets inside out as his stash is replaced by a magnetic strip. New kits are completely devoid of the famous multi-colored bills; instead, you'll find phoney Visa debit cards and a calculator / reader which keeps a running tabulation of your riches -- or lack thereof. A deal was struck with Visa to design the mock cards and readers, presumably after surveys showed that 70% of adults used cash less often now than they did a decade ago (no surprise there). When asked about the dramatic change, Parker said replacing cash with plastic "showed the game was moving with the times." For those anxious to get their swipe on, or if you've simply forgotten how to use bills, the new version will set you back ?24.99, while the now "antiquated" cash version can be had for ?12.99, but only while supplies last.

Peter Cochrane's Blog: Good-bye CDs

Peter Cochrane's Blog: Good-bye CDs

Many years ago I gave up using floppy disks because they had become totally ineffective. Average file sizes were growing in response to computers' bigger hard drives, larger quantities of RAM and greater operating system speeds.

Application producers had also created new mechanisms to do a lot more a lot faster. And finally, the leading machine designers dropped the floppy drive facility from PCs and laptops in favour of CD-only formats. Accessing a floppy now seems to warrant a trip to a museum and I cannot remember the last time I saw one being used. They just seem to have disappeared overnight.

The next big fatality was the VHS tape, overtaken in a few years by the DVD. Again they seemed to vanish in less than a year. So will the DVD share this fate as the next higher density format overtakes it? And where does this leave the CD? I'd say both are at great risk!

Already the ubiquitous USB memory stick is sidelining the CD for many applications and is augmented by the rollout of broadband. Downloading or sharing ~700MB of data, movies, games or applications is more conveniently achieved using broadband and/or USB sticks than CDs.

So my prediction is that the CD will go quickly, overtaken by the DVD and USB stick, and promoted by exactly the same mechanisms that killed the floppy...

Another interesting development has been the process of local file transfer between machines. Sure we can all do it online but the configuration hassle is no mean undertaking, and how much easier and certain it is with a stick!

So my prediction is that the CD will go quickly, overtaken by the DVD and USB stick, and promoted by exactly the same mechanisms that killed the floppy - file size growth, increased storage demand, plus a growing universality that will leave the CD in the dust.

The really interesting arena is in the next transition - from DVD (~9GB) to a much higher definition version (~50GB). The snag is we have two competing standards and they are in the entertainment arena rather than IT alone.

When we transitioned from floppy to CD the capacity multiplier was over 300:1. The move to USB sticks, which have effectively become the new floppy in terms of pure convenience, is already over 500:1. In contrast the move from CD to DVD was only ~10:1. This seems to be a magic ratio in the industry. We tend not to react to marginal capacity or speed changes that are sub 2, 3, 4 or 5:1 but as we approach 10:1 a stampede is triggered and big changes become certain.

There are 2GB USB sticks on the market today and 5GB models are on the way. Relative to the standard CD we will see the density ratio quickly grow from ~3:1 to 6:1 and beyond. Moreover, they will be cheap and remain simple to use - and as disposable as the 256MB sticks today, which are already given away for free instead of pens at conferences! And so, as the new higher definition DVDs take hold, the cost of DVDs can be expected to fall rapidly too. Suddenly CDs will be gone, consigned to the museum with floppies and VHS tapes!

On the timing front there is a snag - an almost identical rerun of the 'tape wars' between VHS and BetaMax. Which should we choose as the new storage media standard: BlueRay or HD DVD? The former uses new production techniques that mean retooling production plants, whilst the latter means modifying existing plants. The latter got to market first, whilst the former is just being launched.

Both technologies have an impressive line-up of content providers and box makers in support, and the first HD movies are now being shipped to feed avid viewers who have already laid out for their own HDTV. So it looks like the battle lines have been drawn.

Personally, I favour BlueRay because it the most advanced technology and can offer 25GB per side, whilst the HD DVD is closer to 15GB per side. This is only just enough space for a full HD movie! Furthermore, the theoretical capacity limits for the technologies are around 200GBfor BlueRay with demos up to 100GB so far, whilst HD DVD is at 45GB with 60GB demos reported.

Interestingly BetaMax was technically better than VHS but lost the race. In fact it seems to be a general rule that the worst technology generally wins the day. But for HDTV and IT I sense a sea change in thinking by the consumers - and ultimately they call the shots.

My real suspicion is that the TV, game and PC box makers are siding more with BlueRay, as are the content producers. If I have to buy in the next few months it will be BlueRay because of all the advantages, and most likely, it will come free on my PC and laptop anyway!

Time's up for watch sales in Japan

Time's up for watch sales in Japan

Ian Rowley

Spare a thought for Japan's watchmakers. According to a new survey by Seiko Watches, the proportion of Japanese aged between 16-49 wearing wristwatches has plummeted from 70% in 1997 to 46% today. The culprit, if you haven't already guessed, is the mighty cell phone. While the trend is a global one, it's more pronounced in Japan, where mobile phone ownership passed 81 million in 2004, and gizmo-jammed handsets rule the roost. (Only in Japan can you use your handset to discern star constellations, while listening to music downloaded over a 3G network, before taking a breath-test for alcohol to make sure you're okay to drive).

Of course, falling watch shipments is only one of the numerous impacts of mobile telephony on Japanese habits. Not all of them positive. At Kichijoji station, half an hour from central Tokyo, signs on escalators warn women to be wary of men using phones to attempt sneaky photos of their underwear. Similarly, the Times of London got into a lather in 2004 when it discovered a filter device on sale in Japan which enables mobile phones to seemingly peer through clothes. The report warned that the filter was particularly effective on dark bikinis.

Other developments are less salcious but manna from heaven for academics and marketers nevertheless. One example: the impact of phone-based shopping. These days there is just about nothing that you can't buy on your handset in Japan—from furniture to a date. At the beginning of the year, a surge of mobile phone-based stock selling even helped pushed the Nikkei down as salarymen rushed to dump stock in livedoor, an internet company whose CEO is now awaiting trial for securities fraud. Then there's the impact on dexterity as kids grow up using their thumbs to type into their handsets at speeds of 100 characters a minute often using new variations on Japanese which save time and make it almost impossible for those not in the know to understand.

Still, all isn't quite lost for watchmakers, despite the paradigm-shifting competition. One answer is to move upmarket. While shipments of watches in Japanare a third of what they were a decade ago, last year total sales actually rose 8% to $5.5 billion, reports the Nikkei Keizai. The reason: those that are buying watches are opting for (often pricey) imports, which account for 70% of the total value of sales.

Google - now a verb

"To google" now a real verb

7/7/2006 8:19:57 AM [SIVACRACY.NET] [Siva]

Google Goes From Web to Webster's:

Google is officially a verb.

Google Inc.'s eponymous search engine became a sanctioned part of the English language Thursday, when "google" — with a small "g" — earned an entry among the 165,000 or so terms in the 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.

The definition: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information … on the World Wide Web." As in, "Let me google that."

Sherwood Fireworks July 4th 2006

Sherwood Fireworks July 4th 2006
Originally uploaded by Scott Adams.

Picture of the day