I really miss the ability to browse a record store, looking at all the releases, all the artists, all the album covers. I know many of you also feel the same. Penny Lane said it best in the movie Almost Famous, “If you ever get lonely you just go to the record store and visit your friends.” I would always discover new artists, music I would never have otherwise found. This is a experience that I have yet to see recreated online. Browsing iTunes or Amazon is not easy. You really have to know what you want and seek it out when shopping online. But, I love a instant availability of buying music online and not having a physical item to store. Imagine if you could combine the best of offline and online shopping.
Check out this virtual store that opened in Korea.
No physical goods, but still shelves of products. Walk, shop, browse. Find or discover the product you want and scan the QR code and the product is paid for and delivered to you.
Imagine a record store filled with music playing, all those great visuals, other music fans, but when you find a album you want you scan the QR code and the music is downloaded to your device. Every album is it’s own listening station. We all have headphones these days, just plug in your headphone and listen. Like it, scan it, buy it, download it. Browse and buy!
Imagine a record store that has every available album “in stock.” Millions of titles.
I’m not sure. It wasn’t a bad movie, but I also didn’t go WOW! when it was over. The visuals were amazing. The 3D was great. The soundtrack was incredible. The story, well it’s Tron and nobody should be expecting a great story that pulls you in.
Some little things that bothered me:
The CGI was too good. Things looked too real, too lifelike in the grid. I wanted it to be more computer graphics looking. The flat graphics look on the original was missing for me.
The costumes. They often times really looked like clothes with neon strips sewed on, rather than what appeared to computer enhanced clothing like the first movie.
The copy of many scenes from the first movie. How does Sam get pulled into the grid, he sits down at a desk that just happens to have giant laser pointing at it, and the laser turns on and sucks him in. Original! Tron and Clu are the replacements for MCP and Sark. Good guys become evil guys. I guess that would be like MacWrite and MacPaint ruling all software on your MacBook.
The Tron character is revealed at the end of the movie. All of a sudden near the very end Flynn asks Tron what has he become and Tron just like that chooses good or evil and is then killed. He is Tron, he could have been much more than the evil ninja warrior sidekick to the evil villain.
The overall lighting in the movie seemed dark. Colors were not as vibrant as what I would have liked.
The hockey helmets were replaced with high tech motorcycle helmets and face shields.
The CGI that creates the younger Flynn is also very well done. It was 3/4 of the way through the movie that I reminded myself that the young Flynn is played by Jeff Bridges, it looked so well done I didn’t question it wasn’t a young Jeff Bridges.
Good or bad, I also picked up a one line homage to WarGames…. the only way to win the game is to not play at all.
I guess really many of these are just very minor complaints. I am watching the original Tron as I type this and I think items #1 and #2 are probably the things that stopped me really loving the movie. The first movie was all WOW!, it had never been done before. I suppose it is hard to compete with a movie that had that level of impact. I think there are times when computer graphics can be too lifelike, too real. I suppose if you think about it, just like graphics have improved over the years, they would have improved in the grid as well.
Will I see it again, of course. And I will buy the DVD. But it didn’t leave the impression on me that the first movie did, and maybe that is impossible as the first movie really was groundbreaking. TRON: Legacy doesn’t break any ground.
I had known you could sell your blog through Amazon’s Kindle, but until reading the following post I didn’t realize just how easy it was. If you want to get a little more exposure for your blog follow these steps and in just a few minutes you will be a publisher on Amazon and you will be able to search for and purchase your blog through Amazon.com. You may not make much, if any money, but the additional exposure won’t hurt.
Update: One day after my blog went live on Amazon.com Google’s News Alert already discovered it and was listing it.
MichealBrandvold.com Blog for Kindle
Thanks to a fellow Blogger, Pat Weber, I learned that you can register your blog on Kindle — and it is actually for sale to Kindle readers for $1.99. Not enough to earn a living but it is gratifying to see your blog on Amazon and to potentially grow your list of subscribers. The easy instructions are located on Kindle Publishing for Blogs.
Here is how it works:
1. Sign in or create a new account. Your Kindle Publishing account will enable you to add blogs and apps.
2. Add and preview your blog. Complete the simple one page form, then preview how your blog will be displayed.
3. Publish. With one click your blog will be made available on the Kindle Store.
When you visit Amazon all you need to do is enter your name and up comes your blog. This is how mine looks and Amazon’s promotional copy.
TouchArcade.com just got a exclusive look at iAmiga. A Commodore Amiga emulator that runs on the Apple iPhone. Read the details below, fun stuff for sure!
Indie development studio Manomio, whose proud motto is “in retro we trust,” first grabbed our attention last summer when their Commodore 64 for iPhone [link] emulation app was rejected by Apple, putting some of the App Store’s boundaries under the spotlight. Happily, though, C64 eventually got the green light and has been warming the hearts of retro gaming enthusiasts for just over a year, now. It’s beautifully executed and is a favorite here at Touch Arcade.
Early this year, Manomio let us know that they had a whole lot more retro heart warming in store and shared details of their upcoming Amiga emulation system, now known as iAmiga, that would allow them to license and release various classic Amiga titles to be faithfully rendered on your iPhone screen. On hearing this we were — readers and editors alike — thrilled at the prospect of enjoying some of the true gaming gems that sit among the vast library of Amiga releases. A short tech demo video was provided in short order, showing two games in play, that served as quite a teaser, making us very anxious to get our hands on the studio’s latest.
I’m happy to report that, yesterday, Manomio CTO Stuart Carnie was merciful enough to finally put an end to our suffering and provide us with an exclusive early build of the iAmiga system, packed with a bundle of sample games, to put through its paces. Yea, it’s dirty work, but somebody’s got to do it.
After spending some serious time with the iAmiga system, I can tell you that, for an early build, it is truly impressive. While it’s true that a few of the games that I tried glitched at some point, the vast majority ran perfectly and buttery smoothly on my iPhone 4. I’m talking about totally accurate sound, flawless graphics, glass smooth animation — just as if the games were being played on the standard config Amiga 500 that iAmiga emulates. Right now there are keyboard, mouse, and joystick input systems that can be activated with a tap, but (especially in the case of the keyboard) they are quick and dirty solutions that will be replaced with much more refined components before anything lands in the App Store, Stuart assures me. The overall portrait / landscape control mechanics, like those found in the studio’s C64, will be preserved, however.
As for what’s under the hood of the iAmiga system, Manomio has taken the UAE4All Amiga emulator and tied it to Stuart’s own ARM assembly optimized, emulated 68000 CPU core. In the name of performance, the core relies upon the ARM7x architecture and, as such, only iPhone 3GS / 3rd gen. iPod touch devices and up can play. iPad support is coming, as well.
The original plan was to take this emulator and wrap it around various licensed Amiga titles and release them as stand-alone games. That’s still part of the plan, but as certain App Store restrictions have loosened a bit of late, there will likely also be a sort of Amiga shell app released that that allows the stand-alone games to be played in a richer Amiga emulation environment that may offers things like OpenGL ES 2.0 shader effects to add scan-lines, CRT glare, and even TV-out and iPad play using a tethered iPhone as a controller. Just the kind of things that make die-hard retro nuts rather weak in the knees.
Stuart has given the okay for us to record and share sample gameplay footage of his emulation system, and so I’ve put together a fairly lengthy mix of 10 Amiga games that you just might remember.
The games shown in the video are the following, in order: Defender of the Crown, Battle Squadron, International Karate +, R-Type, R-Type II, Speedball, Stunt Car Racer, Shadow of the Beast, Virus, and Xenon 2: Megablast. It should be noted that this list does not represent the list of games that will necessarily be coming to the App Store through the iAmiga system — these are games simply used to test the system in its developmental state. (In fact, some of these I added from my own collection of Amiga disk images.)
As far as what we will be seeing in the way of iOS Amiga releases, Manomio has licensed various titles from Cinemaware, so Defender of the Crown, It Came from the Desert, Wings, and others are on the way. The studio is currently in licensing discussions with several other IP holders to secure additional titles for iOS release, including Factor 5 (Turrican I, II, III), The Bitmap Brothers (Xenon II: Megablast), Magnetic Fields (Supercars), Cope-Com (Battle Squadron), and Archer MacLean (IK+). Additionally, they are in talks with an unnamed major mobile publisher that’s very interested in putting Amiga classics in the hands of today’s gamers.
As you can see from the video, what we’re in for is a wave of excellent games that are retro, true, but not so retro that they lack mainstream appeal. (Yes, the Amiga was that advanced 25 years ago.) This is big news, not only for iOS gamers, but for mobile gaming in general. In my personal experience, Amiga emulation has been quite a bit more difficult to manage than other age-old platforms on proper Macs and PCs due to the complexity of the original hardware. The thought of having easy access to these games in a tap-and-go fashion — even standing in line at the bank — is just amazing. I call this some of the very biggest news in iOS gaming that we’ve ever covered and can’t wait until all of you out there get a chance to enjoy these great Amiga titles on your iOS devices, as well.
For readers unfamiliar with the Amiga, it is a 16-bit computer released by Commodore in 1985. A far more complex system than the C64, the Amiga featured a powerful central processor (the same found in the early Macintosh), various custom co-processors, and a multitasking operating system that, together, enabled audiovisual feats previously unseen in a consumer system at that point in time. While it did not see enormous popularity in the United States, it was wildly popular in Europe and is considered by many to be one of the very best game platforms ever created. InfoWorld called the Amiga the “third milestone” in computing after the Apple II and IBM PC.
We’ll be tracking Manomio’s iAmiga project closely and will pass along any further details that emerge, as we get them.
It seems to me that Google is one of the largest sites for locating illegal content. Do a Google search for “download the social network” and just look at the results. The Social Network should not be available to download or watch online, yet look at all the links returned. Want to take it one step further, lets get Google to only return torrent files. Try this:
Search for:filetype:torrent with file name. Thank you for the pirated content Google!
Why is Google returning links to illegal content? Ad revenue maybe? Look at the paid ad that was returned for my first search example.
Download Full Movies Download The Social Network 100% Legal. No Hidden Fees. California blockbuster.com
Really, Blockbuster? The movie is not available to download from you, you can only rent the DVD. Downloading The Social Network right now is not 100% legal. Google likes that ad revenue. Here is a thought, maybe they should pass that revenue along to the content producer who are loosing revenue from the downloads. Not likely to happen.
What they will do is act within 24 hours of take-down requests filed by the rightsholders.
Why can’t Google omit torrent sites from search results? If the torrent site has legit content put it on them to request Google to include them in the results, rather than putting it on the rightsholders to request removal every time pirated content is returned. Seems to me that the majority of links will be for illegal content rather than for legit content. So by default protect the rights of the content producers. If it is a torrent site it is a good chance it is illegal.
Lets stop going after the last mile, the customer, and go after one of the biggest sources Google.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google said Thursday that it has taken a new stance on copyright take-down requests to help reduce piracy on the Internet.
The search giant said it now plans on acting on reliable copyright take-down requests within 24 hours and will build tools to improve the submission process to make it easier for rightsholders to submit DMCA takedown requests for Google products.
“For copyright owners who use the tools responsibly, we’ll reduce our average response time to 24 hours or less,” said Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel. “At the same time, we’ll improve our ‘counter-notice’ tools for those who believe their content was wrongly removed and enable public searching of takedown requests.”
Walker said Google would start initially with web search and Blogger.
With the initiative, Google also will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete, which offers searches that might be similar to the one surfers type in the field.
It also will improve its AdSense anti-piracy review and expel violators from the AdSense program. Some say Google helped finance piracy by allowing file-sharing networks to participate in AdSense.
Google also plans to experiment to make authorized preview content more readily accessible in search results.
“Most users want to access legitimate content and are interested in sites that make that content available to them — even if only on a preview basis,” Walker said. “We’ll be looking at ways to make this content easier to index and find.
“These changes build on our continuing efforts, such as Content ID, to give rightsholders choice and control over the use of their content,” he said.
via Google Plans on Fighting Piracy With Search – XBIZ.com.
Michael Brandvold is a freelance music imarketing consultant based in Northern California. Having launched Michael Brandvold Marketing to leverage his years of experience to provide digital strategy to large and small clients in the areas of online & social marketing as well as e-commerce and fan acquisition and retention.
Early this year, Manomio 
For readers unfamiliar with 
It seems to me that Google is one of the largest sites for locating illegal content. Do a Google search for “download the social network” and just look at the results. The Social Network should not be available to download or watch online, yet look at all the links returned. Want to take it one step further, lets get Google to only return torrent files. Try this:
