Technology

The Value of 3D

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I have an ambiguous relationship with the whole 3D movie/game/tv/whatever trend.  On one hand, I love new gadgets and neat technology, and I like a good spectacle.  On the other hand, it seems like it's becoming an annoying fad and everyone is jumping on the visually appealing bandwagon.  Despite the challenges, despite lousy conversions of 2D films to 3D (Clash of the Titans comes to mind), people are barreling ahead with 3D.  Apparently, there will be a 3D release of "The Last Airbender," which fills me full of dread (taking what appears to be a visually stunning film and running 3D after the fact?  Not good.)

Now, I think 3D is going to be inevitable.  It's approached a fad status, people are interested in visual quality, but I'm expecting 3D to be a very bumpy road for moviemakers, game makers, and hardware people.  The problem is that people don't "get" 3D, they don't ask the question anyone should ask about a new technology, gizmo, process, etc.

Does it add value?  If you don't ask that question you're either ignorant or just trying to jump on the bandwagon.

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Social Media Points of Failure

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Facebook has just added a lot of new features to its offering, buttons and graphs and likes and widgets galore.  Of course among the various discussions about Facebook, one issue keeps  coming up is that Facebook, as it gets bigger, is a single point of failure in people's online lives and identities.

If you think back, there have been a lot of "single points of failure" in peoples online lives.  I remember when ICQ was the big chat program, when LinkedIn had no competitors, when everyone worried about Twitter owning people's lives (remember that?).  There's always a worry that some provider or web service will dominate everything – and then bad things will happen with hackers, TOS changes, etc.

So we've had a lot of worry about points of failure in our internet lives.  Though I have yet to see a Great Online Life Destruction Debacle, it is a possibility of course.  However,  I've watched many a gloom and doom story about the internet and have yet to see Netageddon happen.

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How Services Make Hardware More Valuable

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So I'm using my Netflix disc in my Wii and am pretty impressed with it.  Great picture, runs smooth.  Controls are a bit weird, because it's a mix of standard metaphor and Wii control.  Overall it's pretty good.

I'm also using the Wii for the first time since I got tired of No More Heroes II.  This makes me think about some of the upcoming games for the Wii, and how now the Wii has this service and others, and . . .

Then I realize that I'm viewing my Wii differently because of one release.  This is something you, the progeek, will be facing: services change the value of media devices, and there's a lot of people out there offering services.

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