If you’ve been following Nintendo news as of late, you know that the company is in trouble. During its last-reported quarter, its revenue slid considerably, it posted a loss, and hardware sales plummeted. In order to revive the ailing 3DS, Nintendo was forced to cut its price from $249.99 to $169.99.
The Netflix price hike for those who want DVD rentals and unlimited streaming just won’t go away. Everywhere I turn, someone I know or an article I read mentions the 60 percent hike, and soon after that, complaints arise.
Nintendo tried to sweeten the news of its dramatically disappointing financial results, announced earlier today, with a pre-emptive price cut of the 3DS, but the outlook for the company is still grim. Adoption of the 3DS has been underwhelming, with a mere 830,000 sold in the US since its March 2011 launch. The specter of the PS Vita has been name-checked by many already today as one potential reason for consumer reticence, but there’s more to Nintendo’s struggle than Sony’s incoming uber-handheld.
A tech journalist friend of mine, Noah Kravitz, recently retweeted a message from a kid in Ireland, and I found it interesting. He said:
“@noahkravitz Hi Noah, Im trying an experiment to see if someone who isnt famous at all can get 1m followers. Can you help?” – @elsparkio
Something about this idea caught my attention. I think it was the post-structuralist nature of the endeavor. At its heart, post-modernism, and perhaps all nascent art forms, is all about finding the boundaries that you did not know existed, and then crossing them. If you look at a piece of art work and ask yourself “Is that art?” it’s probably post-modernist.
I was recently discussing companies that are trying to make it big with living room entertainment products with a friend, when he asked me which company — Microsoft or Apple — was doing a better job. My first reaction was to say Apple.
I’m going to start by congratulating myself. I have stuck with some of my original Anti-Tech Resolutions longer than I have ever stuck with a resolution in the past. Before I get specific about my progress with each of my original goals, I’ll say that the first thing I learned about keeping a resolution is that it is much easier to vow NOT to do something than it is to promise yourself you WILL do something. Maybe that’s a lesson I will take into any resolutions I make of a non-technical nature. Instead of vowing to lose weight, I will vow to not drink sugary soda. Instead of vowing to go to the gym, I will vow to not go to the gym.
I can already see the flaws in my plan.
Over the years, I’ve tried to find the best device to connect to my television and enjoy entertainment. I’ve gone with the Apple TV, Roku set-top boxes, the TiVo, and countless other products. But when it was all said and done, I decided that Apple’s Mac mini was the best option for me.
Nokia’s Q2 2011 financial results makes for just as uncomfortable reading as we expected. If there was ever any doubts that Symbian had seen its day, April thru June put pay to them. Nokia’s entire smartphone range – the N8, C7 and E7 included – sold fewer devices than Apple sold iPhones in the same period: 16.7-million versus 20-million. It’s not just the smartphone side of Nokia’s business, though, that needs CPR.
I love a good smartphone. I work for Samsung, and I carry a Galaxy S II that I’ve been “testing” for an extended period of time. I use just about every feature on it. I listen to music. I navigate. I talk and text. I take pictures and video. I’ve even read books on it. I’m not pushing my product, I can hardly name a smartphone on the market that cannot do these things. But I just read Jon Pilon’s column on TheNextWeb.com about consolidating all of your gadgets. You know, because most people want to carry around only one gadget, instead of a half dozen. Right?
Emily Price has an interesting piece on TechnoBuffalo about whether the Internet is killing our memory. In fact, she’s really talking about nostalgia, not recall memory in general, but it’s a fascinating topic worth some exploration. The real question is whether the existence of things in digital form or physical form is more pleasing to our recollection, and I do not think there is an easy answer. Undoubtedly, there are things that feel better in the hand than on the screen, and there are ways of storing valuable memories digitally that are more reliable than their physical versions. But I also wonder if this transition, from physical to digital memory, won’t also teach us that there are certain memories we should simply give up for good.
This past week, I was just surfing the web, looking at news stories, and came across what might be the most shocking report I’ve seen in a long time: Research In Motion is working on an Apple TV competitor.
The product is apparently codenamed “BlackBerry Cyclone” and could launch later this year. The device will reportedly include Netflix streaming, YouTube content, and, well, a whole bunch of other stuff that you and I both know will never make its way to a living room-focused product by RIM.
There is me, and there is you. There is also that guy over there. The one looking at us. He’s watching us and listening to our conversation. I have friends. You have friends. He’s on the phone. Maybe he’s talking to his friends, telling them all about us. Here are some pictures I took. Let me see pictures of your baby. Why is that guy looking at my pictures? Aren’t you creeped out that he’s checking out pictures of your baby? Maybe you shouldn’t show them to me here. It’s not very private. Why don’t we take this discussion online.
