The Fifth of November has been observed in England since the plot to bomb Parliament in 1605. Activists have reclaimed this day and Guy Fawkes to stand against unjust state and corporate power. Techies can commemorate this day and rebellious spirit with iFixit’s EFF Activist Bundle:
This 5th of November, iFixit is teaming up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to empower technology users (AKA everyone) to take their digital stuff back from government interlopers and corporate money mongers.
What are we reclaiming? Common sense and fair use. iFixit is fighting for your right to repair your stuff. And the EFF is fighting to protect your right to use that stuff without the NSA—or anyone else—peeking over your shoulder.
For $60, start repairing your own digital gear. It’ll pay itself very quickly, as well as raising some funds for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
When teaching a class on digital media, I start the lesson by telling students that “computers are stupid” that they can only “understand” two things: on and off. This episode from the 1980s animated series, Scooter Computer and Mr. Chips centers around this important fact. Scooter thinks that Mr. Chips is smart, but in fact, Mr. Chips lets his pal in on a little secret.
Having grown up in the 1980s, I remember the series, and the melody of the theme song has remained in my brain since I was a child. I don’t remember this particular episode, even if its story, dispelling a widely held belief that computers are autonomous, informs my thinking about computers.
This was a particularly resonant for the early 1980s. Well-heeled consumers were bringing personal computers into their homes, and their children could learn that their computers were not thinking machines. All they did was execute instructions, faster than any thinking person could.
In my New Technologies class, one of the recurring topics we’ve covered is that of disruptive innovations. I did not use the Clayton Christensen text as the basis of this discussion, primarily because Christensen seems a bit too optimistic about the role that disruptive innovations can have in creating new markets and new players. Instead, I felt that Tim Wu’s The Master Switch was a more complete discussion of potential disruptions such as telephone, radio, and the Internet because it not chronicled how these and other technologies disrupted existing markets but also how they were consolidated anew.
Cable TV: From Community to Commerce
Once a grassroots technology, cable television is an example of a technology on the cusp of a disruption. The cable industry emerged as a community-oriented project in the 1940s, known as Community Antenna Television, that gave television set owners in remote locations access to broadcast signals necessary to make television a worthwhile product.[1]Hardware is essentially useless unless you have enough software. By the 1960s, the broadcasters saw cable as a threat to their livelihood and convinced the FCC to block it in all but the smallest markets. Meanwhile, policy wonks were enamored with cable television because it offered an alternative to broadcast television. Television viewers could be liberated from the dependence of watching television via scarce and tightly controlled radio waves. They could access more specialized, relevant than anything that the broadcast networks could ever offer.[2]
By the 1970s, cable television was hardly a disruptive medium. Ted Turner had pioneered a way to distribute his Atlanta-based UHF station to a nationwide audience, via satellite. While this was a truly innovative strategy for starting a superstation that could rival broadcast networks, its programming strategy was actually less ambitious than that of the broadcasters. The superstation WTBS aired off-network syndicated programming, such as older sitcoms and movies, and live coverage of Atlanta Braves and Hawks games.[3]
The Threat of Internet and Cord Cutters
As cable television has evolved to “multichannel television” as it has included direct broadcast satellite for the better part of twenty years, new Internet-connected television sets and over-the-top devices appear as disruptive innovations for multichannel television, possibly encouraging “cord cutters” to sever the ties with cable and satellite suppliers and their high bills once and for all. Derek Thompson has challenged that idea because he sees the technology titans, namely Apple, Google, and Microsoft, not as agents of change because they simply don’t care for unbundling specific content from the lucrative packages that net multichannel video providers their fortunes. As Thompson writes, “Apple has realized that it doesn’t have to beat Comcast and Verizon to own your living room. It only has to join them.” The tech giants are more likely than not partner with multichannel television providers than to challenge them.
The Smartphone Sustains the Wireless Carriers
Any television device that Apple could market will likely fall short of disrupting the multichannel television industry and will likely resemble what we’ve seen with smartphones. While the smartphone has clearly been a wonderful innovation, it is, to use Christensen’s terminology, a “revolutionary” one because it introduced an unexpected innovation but one that ultimately sustains the existing market. That’s what we saw with the iPhone and with its chief rival Android. Charles Arthur explains that Android actually strengthens the wireless carrier industry. He writes, “Google wants as many carriers as possible to sell Android phones – that’s how you get market share, and because the phones are ad-supported the more the better; it defrays the cost of software development faster. The business model for the carriers is exactly as it was before Android: sell a variety of phones from a variety of handset makers at a variety of prices. No disruption there.” Despite its significant marketshare, Android has not disrupted the smartphone industry, much less the wireless telephone industry.
The wireless carriers have benefitted greatly from the innovation of the smartphone. It has allowed them to sell new services, such as lucrative data plans and unlimited text messaging plans while retaining the legacy voice services that make up a significant portion of a consumer’s monthly bill. In the case of the iPhone, Apple might control the hardware and the software at the expense of the carriers’ tight control, but the wireless carriers are also benefitting from expanding revenues.
“No Disruption There”
As the smartphone has strengthened the finances of the wireless carriers, I expect that any new television product Apple introduces will actually strengthen the position of the multichannel television providers. In the case of the multichannel television providers, they might lose control over the hardware necessary to deliver video to the television set, but they will still be the beneficiaries of such any innovation that the tech companies develop. I wouldn’t be surprised to see any new Apple TV device to first work with Verizon FiOS and AT&T’s U-Verse, since there’s already a partnership between Apple and those companies in the wireless space, and then to the others, such as TimeWarner Cable, Cox, and Comcast. I don’t know what that device is, all I know is that it will be revolutionary, but, Charles Arthur would say, “no disruption there.”
The above links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy something through those links, I will earn a commission fee.
Mullen, Megan. The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States: Revolution or Evolution? University of Texas Press, 2003. 32–38. ↩
This semester’s History of Cinema course concluded with the contemporary Hollywood entertainment economy. One of the themes we continually encountered was Hollywood pursuing spectacle and scale in order to remain relevant. This contrast with what we have seen throughout the semester with emerging cinemas relying more on New Wave priorities of stylistic experimentation and character development.
One of the main topics we covered was the new exhibition technologies of 3D and Digital Projection. While these have been around for decades, and for over a century in the case of 3D photography, the new push for faster frame rates seem as a new way for Hollywood to separate itself from other cinemas from around the world.
David Bordwell has recently covered the campaign for 48 frames per second—double that of the traditional sound film frame rate of 24 frames—led by Peter Jackson and James Cameron as a way to eliminate the artifacts visible in their digital-effects-heavy films. I won’t repeat everything he has to say in that illuminating article but I found a few points relevant for our discussion.
In order for theater owners to adopt new hardware, there needs to be a viable path to recovering those costs with profitable software. It’s hard to imagine filmmakers with a better profit potential than Jackson and Cameron.
By pioneering new projection technology, it will be hard for other filmmakers—both within and outside of Hollywood—to match them in terms of spectacle.
Bordwell is right when he points out the 48 fps debate overlooks the entire issue of story. It’s not that the two are mutually exclusive. It’s just that they are almost working with an entirely different medium than other filmmakers.
We have seen in various other nations numerous attempts to foster a strong national cinema. International co-productions and complex financing arrangements were such methods, but while they might have matched (or approached) the scale of a Hollywood film, they rarely accomplished any sustained success. What had worked was making films with a strong personal vision, complex characters, and drawing on rich sources such as history, politics, or philosophy. These films might not have yielded immediate financial successes, but films like these kinds fostered a strong sense of national identity and also became the hallmarks of international cinema. I tried to screen films of these type throughout the semester.
As filmmakers chase the apex of digital realism, we should not let the digital revolution foreclose what made the cinema, not just entertaining and spectacular, but an international art form.
From my friends in the Queens College Educational Technology Community:
Knowledge in the Digital Age: Teaching, Learning, and the Googlization of Everything with Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan
All are invited: LaGuardia’s Library Media Resources Center is once again pleased to offer its annual Knowledge in the Digital Age speaker’s event. This year, Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan has accepted an invitation to speak on the issues revolving around technology in the lives of faculty and students.
When: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 2 p.m.
Where: LaGuardia Community College, E Building, Poolside Cafe
Cost: Free
Refreshments: Definitely
The Library Media Resources Center and the organizing committee would like to thank LaGuardia’s College Association and the CUNY’s LILAC council for co-sponsoring this event.
Should you need ADA accommodation, please contact Charles Keyes by phone at 718-482-6018 or by email: ckeyes@lagcc.cuny.edu
As I was flying to Los Angeles today and watching the episode of 30 Rock that comes on between the inflight safety video and the feature film, I saw the episode, “¿Que Sopresa?” where Jack Donaghy pitches the idea of a voice controlled television set to his new Kabletown bosses. The demonstration doesn’t go well.
When I saw that scene, it made me think of how Steve Jobs reportedly said that he had finally “Cracked It” when it came to an Apple TV. If the rumors are true, the new integrated television set will take advantage of Siri, Apple’s new voice-activated personal assistant.
So did Jack Donaghy “crack” television before Jobs and Apple?
In today’s New York Times, Brooke Barnes writes about the possibility of movie studios adding a new “window,” or a new run, to the existing tiers of home video sales. The new window, called Premium VOD, would begin as little as 45 days after the theatrical run would start and would be facilitated by video service providers (i.e., your cable or satellite company). The move is done to combat slumping DVD/Blu-Ray sales and Internet piracy.
The main opponents to Premium VOD include the movie theaters, which depend on the content, and the retailers of DVDs. Both fear that customers would opt to watch movies at home for a price that is lower than either theatrical exhibition or video disc sales.
Students should consider this in the context of the old run-zone-clearance system that emerged nearly 100 years ago and was pioneered by studios such as Paramount. Also, consider the digital revolution in media and how this marks another transformation in the film industry.
