Today Apple has an event introducing their new iPod lineup. Included in the iPod lineup is the Apple TV device which as many people are reporting is due for an update today. While this will be a media based device, it could also function as an iPad for your TV. Especially if the rumors are correct that it will run the iOS that the iPhone and iPad share. So it might be possible that the Apple TV could be an HTML5 delivery device. The iLife software is due for an update, so instead of iDVD being updated, there could be an HTML5 creation app. It’s less than 2 hours from now, so we’ll see soon enough. I would like Apple to support this open standard, and make it easy for the average person to create content for these devices. I’d love to see a mix of Netflix, network television, and user-generated content playable on these devices. A guy can dream right?

Flickr photo by justinsomnia

Now, they call it Plex/Nine, but it is actually version 0.9, so it’s still beta software. I do use it often and it’s the least frustrating media center software I’ve used. So besides media management, what do you get? First, it will read all of your movie files. That includes all my Handbrake ripped movies as well as the “raw” DVD rips of my video library. It seamlessly merges both types of files from a single directory and gives you a clean, attractive interface to view your collection. You also get the ability to watch your Netflix Instant Watch queue, view your Flickr photos, view YouTube videos, play your iTunes music, videos, and podcasts, along with many more services. It even plays my old catalog of DivX videos.

So the anticipation is killing me. I do have some anticipation for the Apple TV device and will be curious if they deliver a $99 device that has similar capabilities to Plex. I find it interesting where we are in computer history. We still have the HTPC/Media Center PC and then several set-top box media devices such as the Apple TV, Roku, Popbox, the Western Digital TV Media Players, and many more. It is similar to the market for traditional desktop/laptops and tablet(iPad)/netbooks. What’s going to be the best combination of features? The appified box (will Apple TV be iOS 4? Seems almost certain) vs. the full on OS box. To me the iPad et. al., and the iTV et. al. are just new markets in the computer world. How it all shakes out will be interesting. It definitely needs a good shake.

Welcome to the new school year. I’m still shaking my head about where the summer went. I’m also still grinding gears from vacation last week, but despite those issues, I’m very excited about 2010/11 at UMW. While perusing my RSS feed today, Lifehacker reminded me about Evom, a Mac only (sorry) video converter that is super slick and easy. If it were on the PC it could be the one program I would recommend to do a myriad of tasks.

Evom comes from a company called Little App Factory, makers of the Mac DVD ripping software RipIt! I don’t know where the name Evom came from, but the program works great. It converts many types of videos, and uses the ffmpeg engine to perform its magic. The beauty of the program is the ease in which it gets video into the right configuration for Apple devices. You drag a file from your hard drive into the interface and you get asked which device you want to prepare the file for.

Choosing the iTunes or iPod buttons gives you the option convert the video, or to ditch the video and just save as an MP3 audio file, so it’s handy for ripping audio from video files. You can also prepare videos for an Apple TV (and therefore iPad), or for uploading to YouTube. It’ll even take care of the uploading part (supply your YouTube credentials). You also have the option to simply save the file to a folder anywhere on your computer.

OK. So lots of converters do similar things to Evom. Big deal. Well, for me the big deal is that it can also convert videos that are ON YouTube. If you’re using Safari or Firefox, simply drag the YouTube link from the address bar to the Evom window, and then choose your destination. The downloading and conversion can take a while, depending on connection speed, length of the video, etc., but it all happens in the background. So it’s YouTube to iPod, or iPhone, or iPad, or Apple TV, or to PowerPoint or Keynote, in minimal steps.

One wrench in the works, and it’s not Evom’s fault, is that the Google Chrome browser doesn’t allow the dragging of links into the Evom window. I don’t know what prevents this, but there’s a simple solution. Simply copy the link, with a Command-c shortcut, or by clicking the Edit menu and Copy, then paste the link into Evom (use Command-p or choose Edit>Paste in Evom). Since Google Chrome still does not have a YouTube downloader extension, this is a great solution for grabbing those videos.

One final word about Evom. It’s free!

I know.

You’re welcome.

Standard disclaimer about grabbing YouTube videos or ripping audio from files. Remember there are copyright issues.

Apple is holding a press conference today. No one knows exactly what they are going to say, who is going to say it, or whether people will be satisfied with what they say, but it’s a big deal in the technology world. The iPhone 4′s antenna issues have been documented. Experts are saying there will be a recall. I personally don’t think the issue warrants it. But why is this a big story?

I believe it is because of what this device is. It’s a computer. It’s not a phone, or just a phone. As I and others have said, sometimes a dropped call is a good thing. I use my iPhone for so much more than calling people, which at this time in history is becoming quaint. The iPhone 4 compares to a Mac from 2000 – AND it fits in your pocket! The power of these devices is only accelerating. I’ve long said that these devices will be our main computers. We’ll carry them to do certain tasks, and then dock them to do tasks that require more monitor space.

Look at where we are. It’s a device that fits in your pocket. It turns on instantly. It connects wirelessly to the Internet (in two ways). I has a built in still and video camera. It can triangulate where you are in the world. It has a 32GB hard drive with no moving parts. An on and on. I think sometimes we miss the revolution that it is. Still, it is a device, made by a company. There are other companies that make similar devices. It’s the computer wars of the early 90′s all over again, with some different players. It is still a big deal, in terms of technology and in terms of communication.

Yes, Apple thinks different. They don’t always think right. While most other companies have evolved their online presence to include things like Twitter and/or Facebook and have openly shared any issues and bugs with an online community, Apple has not. That’s what I want to see change today, or at least start to change. They may think they don’t need to. They may think they are successful because they don’t have that open presence. I believe that if they continue to be closed, it will be self-destructive. There are many who enable this closed attitude – its fans, journalists, and customers themselves. However, Apple is getting more popular and with that will come increasing demands that they be more open, or at least more honest.

Apple’s latest issue with the antenna is not a big deal. It is an issue on a lot of cell phones including previous iPhones (like the 3G in my video above). They can do minimal things to make it right, like give people a free bumper and improve the software that displays signal strength. The reason that they need to change their software at all is because they made it so that the signal would look better than it really was. It was all about the bars (thanks AT&T you have some culpability in this too). Now it’s time to be honest. Stop with the lofty talk. It’s one thing to try to make superior products. It’s another to act superior. Please, no more Jony Ive videos. He’s a great designer, but those videos now couldn’t look any more phony (no pun intended). Let’s have just a wee bit more REAL.

Steve Jobs blames user error for initial reports of iPhone 4 reception problems.

Apple blames formula for iPhone reception problems (they’re “stunned”).

No response to Consumer Reports testing of signal degradation.

Apple deletes, then keeps, support forum threads regarding CR article.

Apple fanboys blame Consumer Reports for flawed tests that show signal loss in iPhone 4. (so MacLife, how did Apple test for the problem when they informed us about the signal strength bar issue? Was it more rigorous than the Consumer reports tests?)

Apple has a reception problem.

Apple should listen to its customers and stop pretending there aren’t problems. Those problems might not be a big deal, but stop with the blaming of others.

Flickr photo by Stone Mirror

Associating Nack with the Great Lives series, and then seeing him eulogize Steinbrenner, makes Steinbrenner seem a little more special.

I was never a big fan of George Steinbrenner. I was 9 years old when he bought the Yankees from CBS in 1973. I did love the Yankees (my father and older brother were big fans), and at the time, they were not a very good baseball team. They certainly had been, but the lack of a World Series win since 1962 meant that I had never seen my beloved team win it all.

Steinbrenner died yesterday from a heart attack. He had heart troubles before. He is known for ushering in what we call “free agency” in sports with the signing of “Catfish” Hunter. After the ugliness of the Lebron James fiasco, that’s not a particularly great legacy.

The Yankees did win championships in 1977 and 1978, but then suffered some more lean years with lots of turmoil, and lots of different managers. It wasn’t until he ceded control of the day-to-day operations that the Yankees became winners again. However, this seems to be the time when Steinbrenner showed that he was the most human. I remember tears and hugs for Joe Torre when they won the Series. William Nack does not varnish over Steinbrenner’s fallibility, but his remembrance drives home that human quality.

With Apple’s iPhone 4, the cute answers have been “don’t hold it that way“, and “we’re stunned that blah blah blah” when it comes to a reception issue that many people have reported. I’ve been saying for several months now that Apple is at a crossroad. These kinds of answers won’t cut it because they’re an adult company now. What they’re telling their customers is bullshit. There is no other word for it (well there is, but this one has the best bang for the buck).

Steve jobs reportedly told people not to hold the iPhone 4 a certain way, you know, the same way that virtually all of their advertising demonstrates to hold the phone, and the way Jobs himself held it at its introductory keynote. Then there was the letter that admitted that they we’re “stunned” to find the way they measured signal strength be wrong. In other words, they were lying all along about those signal strength bars. They were making it look like they had more signal than they actually did. They just said they didn’t know, or think it was possible, that they were lying.

Well, today, none other than Consumer Reports called bullshit. They said the phone, by bridging the gap in its new antenna design, could lose -20Db in signal, and that could lead to dropping a call. Unlike what Apple has said in their letter, the other iPhones did not lose the signal like the iPhone 4. Antenna experts reached slightly different conclusions. Then they acknowledged a problem.

OK Apple Genius, your move.

“I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else.

They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they

can’t get it.”

I don’t want to get into the cluelessness of this statement, or the fact that the career of Prince might be over, but instead I offer you a different way of viewing music on the web. It is now possible to completely publish an album on the web using only HTML (utilizing HTML5 elements) – no Flash allowed. I came across an article that touted the first embeddable HTML5 album. Presenting Francis and the Lights – It’ll Be Better . Now I would argue that HTML5 is intended to be an advancement that allows all devices and browsers to access the same content. We’re not there yet as Jerry‘s android phone won’t play the album, and neither will IE8 (or even the IE9 developer platform browser). But, we’ll be getting there sooner rather than later when people push the technology in these directions. I’ve got a future post brewing on what HTML5 is, and maybe even an anti-Flash rant, but for now you can view this in a variety of places such as any browser on the Mac, Firefox on Windows, and the iPhone (see screenshot below). The Internet is just getting started.

In the “how long were you going to have that feature and not tell me” category comes the ability to record in the Mac version of VLC. What it allows you to do is record segments from a DVD. You see, in the Windows version of VLC (since version 1.0 came on the scene), you have been able to record a DVD that is playing. The Windows version has a record button in the program (you need to select View>Advanced Controls to make it available). Once you do that you can hit the button to start recording, then hit it again to stop.

For almost a year now, and even during my recent NMC presentation, I have been under the assumption that this was a Windows only feature. In exploring the new version 1.1 for the Mac, I discovered in the keyboard shortcuts area a “record” option. Invoking “Shift-Command-r” starts a recording, and pressing the same key combo again, stops the recording.

This, of course, dramatically helps the workflow of using clips from DVDs on the Mac. After saving the recording, I would use Handbrake to convert it into a web ready MP4 file, then upload it to a web server. The result would look like this:

See my screencast on Recording Segments from a DVD. Insert the standard disclaimer here about copying DVDs and Fair Use.

That said, for me the 2010 edition was quite successful. It started with the opening reception and seeing old friends while also trying to follow what turned out to be the final game of the Stanley Cup Finals (way to go Chicago!). The first official day of the conference opened with USC representative Susan Metros giving the welcome, complete with Mini Mouse ears. Mimi Ito gave a thoughtful opening talk that started to go beyond the question of whether this technology stuff is making us smarter or dumber, but rather it depends on what we do with it. She also mentioned the importance of the work of her fellow cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch.

Next up was a breakout session from the Penn State folks, Chris Millet, Ryan Wetzel, and former Penn State, now USC based, Matt Frank on their highly successful student-focused media services organizations. I’m very familiar with Penn State’s Digital Commons, as I have based much of the structure of my own New Media Center here at Mary Washington on the work of Cole Camplese and his PSU crew.

After a brief lunch with Don Henderson and Marco Torres in Downtown Disney, it was back to “work” and watching the Case Western presentation on the Future of Video in Learning. Then my friend Gardner Campbell and his crew from Baylor, Tim Logan and Addy (student whose last name I forgot) reflected on their faculty development seminar using the New Media Reader. Gardner called it his most successful faculty development effort and is beginning to recruit for the next one right now.

The evening ended with a trip to the House of Blues and after getting some food, I faded fast owing to the time zone difference, but not before seeing some serious dance moves being demonstrated by some happy NMCers.

Finally, Friday morning arrived and it was time for my session, “This Old New Media Center“. When I first proposed this session, I had a vague idea of where I was going with this. I simply was re-working the This Old House title and was going to showcase some tools that I use on a daily basis for new media. It wasn’t until later that I decided to do a full-on TV show and use the Boinx TV software to present with – complete with the theme music from This Old House (Fats Waller’s 1935 “Louisiana Fairytale”). It was very well received, and I even got a virtual high-five from Chris Clark from the Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning at Notre Dame.

The entire “show” and the resource are online and are available at the Digital Media Cookbook site that is featured. Perfectionist that I am, I found plenty wrong or missing, or stuff I just plain forgot or didn’t have time for, but it turned out pretty much like I envisioned.

I’m sure I’m not alone, but when you present at NMC (or anywhere) there is the conference before you present, and then that more relaxed version of the conference after you have presented. More presentations followed on Friday culminating in the “Five Minutes of Fame” presentations that were exceptional this year. Awards for the Poster sessions were presented next and then it was time for dinner.

A wonderful opportunity presented itself as Gardner and I had dinner with Christina Engelbart from the Doug Engelbart Institute. Christina shared some great stories about her father, as well as some wisdom on education, schooling, and child rearing. She has indeed taken her father’s work to a new level, and Gardner and I were soaking up every thought she had about technology and learning in this modern era.

The next morning I was up to catch an early flight home, but happy in reflecting on the energetic 2010 NMC Summer Conference. I missed John Seeley Brown’s keynote, but look forward to watching the video of it as soon as it’s up. I’m ready for next year.