Takumi's Blog

One thing I’ve always wanted with Google’s services (like reader, email, calendar), is the ability to use it offline… don’t we all want that?

Google’s actually already made the Reader app available offline. What you need is Google Gears. I’m pretty sure it stores scripts and data from the service on your local computer, and when you are in offline mode, it uses the stored data instead of the live data (web) to present information to you. Since Gears has the ability to support multiple services, I think Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar are next.

Here’s a list of my top 10 values. What are yours?

1. Creativity
2. Curiosity
3. Inventiveness
4. Intelligence
5. Intuitiveness
6. Trust
7. Confidence
8. Discipline
9. Resourcefulness
10. Integrity

Those 10 were voted on the most out of 374 different values that Steve Pavlina wrote about. You can take a value test here to see your top values.

My favorite game of all time, StarCraft will have a sequel coming out sometime soon! I’m pretty excited about it, and curious on how Blizzard will make StarCraft 2. So far they are going to be using a 3d engine that will be much more capable of displaying a large number of units, and larger units on the screen.

At the same time, Blizzard will also be overhauling their Battle.net service to help make StarCraft 2 a better multi-player game… I look forward to see how this turns out!

Rupert Murdoch will be take his company, News Corp. green by 2010. Now, that’s a big company, with over 47,000 employees on five continents. But news Corp. isn’t the only one. Pepsi recently announced it will be purchasing 1 billion kilowatts of renewable energy over a 3 year span. Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs recently published “A Greener Apple” which talks about the steps Apple has taken, is taking, and will be taking to reduce it’s environmental impact.

I think the steps these companies are taking are the first for a whole wave of corporations that want to go green.  Now that CFL (compact florescent lamp) technology and LED light bulb technology is improving, it will be easier for consumers to make changes, even if they are small steps. I’ve been able to convince my mom to purchase CFL’s, and in Japan we turn off everything we’re not using at the moment. There are lots of small steps we can take to make a difference, and in my opinion, it’s our duty to take those steps.

If it wasn’t for Apple, I probably would be ripping friend’s CD’s to play music… wait, I probably wouldn’t even be listening to as much music as I listen to now. I think it was either MacRumors or AppleInsider where I read this, but on average, every iTunes user only has approximately 8 purchased songs… Compared to that, I have over 400, and that grows every month… but I think it’d grow faster if there weren’t DRM.

Why?

Because right now most of my music is registered to a .Mac account, and if I cancel that account then I can’t authorize or reauthorize my computers. It is my music, and I’d be more at ease if something like that didn’t control my music library. So, without the DRM to bother me, I’d definitely be buying a lot more (even if it was +$.29 to get DRM free).

How does this all tie in with DRM for HD DVD’s and BlueRay? I love watching movies, but I like to watch them on my computer. I like to have them easily accessible any time I want to watch them. What’s the best way to do that? It’s to keep a copy (for personal use) on one of your own hard drives. My HDTV is connected to a seperate computer that I run as a media server, then I have my laptop, and another laptop, and another server, and well, you get my point. Lots of computers. The 5 computer limit (if they adopt Apple’s same DRM restrictions that is), wouldn’t be enough, and the DRM would make it impossible in the first place to make a personal use copy on my hard drive.

I’ve seen the quality of the new HD discs (both BlueRay and HD DVD), and they look amazing. Even though the DVD’s are double the price of normal DVD’s. I’ve also seen the quality of the movie downloads on iTunes, and truthfully, I don’t think it’s worth the $9.99 they charge. I think Apple should offer movies in at least 720p, and for an extra cost, provide it without DRM restrictions (just like music). So, $15~$17 for 720p video without DRM? Hell yes I’ll buy it. Have it released 1 week before DVD’s, I’d buy it before I rent it!

With storage so cheap today, why do we need new DVD’s? Why not just purchase and download, it’s much more convenient right? There’s one issue that comes up for me. When you go over to a friends house, and want to watch a movie you own, you bring your DVD and watch in on their player. That’s not illegal, but, in another example; you go over to a friends house, purchased the movie on iTunes, how would you play it at your friends house without copying it? There’s definitely some gray area here.

Got a little side tracked, but my point is, if the MPAA/RIAA wants us to stay legal, then provide good legal alternatives. Don’t fill things up with DRM just because you don’t want it to get copied. On the contrary, if you put DRM on the content, people will find a way to circumvent it and distribute it another way, without paying for it. Also, when things get out of hand, don’t try and cover it up. With last week’s Digg example, the information would spread faster (this is where my child analogy comes in ).