iConcertCal - sweet!

iConcertCal is a free iTunes plug-in that monitors your music library and generates a personalized calendar of upcoming concerts in your city. It is available for both Windows and Mac OS X and supports worldwide searches.

http://www.iconcertcal.com/index.php

That Fire Alarm Is False, But Hey, Speaking Of Fires, You're Fired

That Fire Alarm Is False, But Hey, Speaking Of Fires, You're Fired: "It's always a good Friday when you find out the company you work for is going under. But what can make those days really great is the caring and sensitive manner in which the company lets you know. For instance, in 2003, a British company told its 2,400 employees that the company was shutting and they wouldn't get paid any more via text message. Today, a department store in England gave its 140 employees the news that they're going to be out of a job in two weeks by pulling the fire alarm to clear the store of shoppers and to gather staff in one location -- the point where they're supposed to meet up in case of fire. The administrators brought in to try and salvage the store's broke owners say 'the most efficient and practical method of informing their colleagues of this business development was by using the fire alarm', and they wanted staff to find out from them before word was made public. Efficient and practical, indeed -- not to mention completely crass and obnoxious. Perhaps we can take some solace in the fact that these nice folks didn't actually burn the place down instead."

(Via Techdirt.)

IBM laying off 40%!

"Cringely says that IBM has begun massive layoffs in a quiet manner, starting with 1300 employees, but by the end of the year, the total will rise to at least 100,000 and probably closer to 150,000 employees, nearly 40% of their U.S. workforce. Some people will be temporarily retained as contractors at a fraction of their salary, and eventually, IBM will also dump many of the unprofitable customer contracts worked on by Global Services or outsource the work to Asia. If these people are looking for work, that could seriously drop wages for technical workers in the US since they will have to compete with these people for available jobs."

Best HD Bargain? ‘Rabbit Ears’ Rule

Best HD Bargain? ‘Rabbit Ears’ Rule: "

Which types of HDTV connections provide the best possible HDTV quality — online downloads, cable, satellite or broadcast? You might be surprised to hear that of the four choices, broadcast is often the best and online downloads usually the worst, with cable often better than satellite.

The problem is that HD hardware manufacturers and content distributors are playing a shell game with the numbers. Yes, you may have 1080p capable hardware, but the key measure I focus on for video quality is not resolution but bitrate, and there’s a lot of room to move in that department. So which is the best for HD delivery?

Full-bandwidth transmission of HDTV requires about 19.5Mbps, and optical media such as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray can provide around 36Mbps. But the reality of transmission, thanks to packet loss and multicasting, is that your HD signal could be anywhere from 7 to 18Mbps, tops, and sometimes even less.

Cable: While the signal in practice tops out at 18Mbps, not every channel provides content in that high a rate. HBO, for instance, specifically delivers content at CableLabs’ recommended 15Mbps so that it’s easy for cable providers to piggyback an 3Mbps Standard Definition (SD) signal alongside it.

Satellite: Satellite is often cheaper and provides the most channels, but you get what you pay for. Industry claims aside, satellite HD is often pejoratively referred to as ‘HD Lite.’ And it’s not always reliable — everything from sun spots to ground interference can reduce your bit rate and introduce ugly artifacts into the picture.

Downloads: iTunes and Apple TV bitrates top out at 5Mbps, even for 720p HD content. And while there are true 19.5Mbps HD movies now available on torrent trackers, they run around 20GB each — and even if your broadband is super-fast, you can’t watch while you download.

Broadcast: This data from Smart Calibrations for average signal bit rate performance for both satellite and terrestrial broadcast in Dallas-Fort Worth provides a striking comparison — a quick scan shows that satellite signals average roughly 2-3Mbps lower bit rate than local networks. While the selection is limited, all it will cost you is the price of an antenna.

Verdict: In general, you’ll get the most bits for your buck, ironically enough, from your local TV station. And until FiOS is a viable option for most, it will probably stay that way. While cable and satellite providers are touting the switch to MPEG-4, variable bitrate encoding and other cures for picture quality, ultimately it all comes down to bandwidth. For more about comparitive HDTV quality, check out the AVS forums.

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(Via NewTeeVee.)

Is Cisco Next with a YouTube Killer?

Is Cisco Next with a YouTube Killer?: "

Now that Microsoft has officially announced plans to host online video, can a similar announcement from Cisco be far behind? Though it’s not part of the video-development competition between Microsoft and Adobe, Cisco does compete with Redmond on a host of other fronts, and has a list of reasons to start a YouTube-like site that make you wonder why the networking giant hasn’t done so already.

And hey, it’s not like Cisco isn’t hip as to how to create a funny online video clip!

OK, maybe they should stick to building routers. So why CiscoTube? It would benefit Cisco in many ways, including:

- Increase overall video bandwidth, creating need for more Cisco routers

- Act as a marketing tool for open-standards TV and Internet gear from Cisco’s consumer division Linksys and business video gear from Cisco itself

- Give Cisco’s service provider partners a safe, secure (and maybe revenue-sharing) partner in the online world whose name isn’t Google

Who would prefer CiscoTube over YouTube? How about:

- Content providers, who could rely on Cisco to use nothing but the best deep-packet inspection technology to keep copyrighted content safe from harm

- Service providers, who might partner with Cisco for extra-cost services, like prioritized video streaming, to consumers or between businesses

- Consumers and corporations, who might want a place to put higher-quality and longer-form videos

It would also help explain some of Cisco’s following moves:

- Its purchase of Tribe.net - adding social networking smarts for a potential consumer video site?

- Its purchase of Arroyo last year — for video on demand and content delivery smarts?

- Its touting of video as the killer app at its December analysts shindig, where it also invited big content players like Disney and NBC to pontificate — buttering up potential partners?

Unlike Microsoft, Cisco usually makes sure it has something working before it makes an announcement, so it’s understandable if the networking giant isn’t quite yet ready to spill the beans. And remember, this is just a rumor — speculation — pure conjecture. We aren’t even going to bother calling Cisco to comment, since we can guess the boilerplate answer about not talking about editorial wild guesses. But anyone want to bet against it happening?

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(Via NewTeeVee.)