Hulu Plus has two parts.  First, instead of just being able to watch the most recent couple episodes, the entire archive of the show’s current season (and maybe past seasons) would be available with a Hulu Plus account.  Also, many older network shows would have every episode produced available for streaming, including old shows such as Ally McBeal, The X-Files and some Saturday Night Live.

Second, Hulu Plus allows you more ways to watch these programs.  Along with the Hulu Plus announcement they released a Hulu Plus iPhone/iPad app.  Also, Hulu Plus is available via a software update on Internet-enabled Samsung TVs and Blu-Ray players.  Also, in the coming months, they have announced streaming to Sony and Vizio players/TVs.  And finally, the content is available up to 720p HD on these devices as well as other streaming devices in the coming months.

Hulu Plus is going to cost $9.99/month.  Sounds great?  Hardly!  Paying the $10 does not get rid of ads.  It might get you less ads; but mostly it gives you more content to watch.  However, for as little as $8.99/month, you can get much of this same content on Netflix streaming (as well as rent a DVD or two).  OK, Hulu will exclusively have newer episodes than Netflix because Netflix doesn’t get them until on or after the season is released on DVD, but even then Netflix doesn’t have ads at all.  I guess some people may pay the $10 for the content, but I don’t think many will.

What shouldn’t be happening?  Using the iPhone/iPad app and watching it on your Samsung player is only available to Hulu Plus members.  What??  That’s right, Hulu has an iPhone/iPod app, but you can’t use it unless you pay for Hulu Plus.  This makes NO sense!!  Sure, list the content that they can’t access and try to charge them the $10 if they want to watch it, but making a subscription to watch Hulu videos on your iPhone is just ridiculous.  Right now, you can watch hundreds of episodes of shows on your computer for free, but you can’t watch these shows on iPhone/iPad or Samsung.

My guess is that the smart folks at Hulu get it; they would love to show us all the content whenever possible.  However, because of their ownership by the networks and the content being tightly controlled by the networks, their hands are tied.  What the networks seems to be trying to do is still make it easiest to watch the show on your TV; if you miss the show, then watch it on Hulu later.  News flash, Hulu: Most of the people I know never watch live TV, and half of them don’t even own a TV.  One reason they want to make you watch TV is because they show advertisements on TV within the content and that’s still where they make the most of their revenue.  They need to figure out that they should be in the same business with Hulu: selling ads.  They can sell more targeted ads to viewers on Hulu and they could still run 3-4 engaging ads per commercial break and most would still watch.  Also, make the content (with the ads) available to anyone who wants to watch it on their TV or iPhone.  People who don’t want to tune in every Thursday at 9/8c can watch on Friday on their Blu-Ray player or iPad and the networks still get their money, even if they don’t get the bragging rights that they own Thursday night.

The television networks are delaying the realization that they do not control the thoughts of America.  The movie Network documented that era thirty-four years ago.  People have more to tune into than ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox.  They have the Internet.  They have a happy hour with friends.  They have a movie to watch.  If tools like Hulu aren’t expanded to reach more people and more places, the networks are going to quickly find that they have no audience any more.

First, here’s the details.  It’s called the iPhone 4.  It’s not the iPhone 4G because it doesn’t have 4th generation data network services.  It’s got a new look, with glass covering both the front and the back.  There’s a steel band around the sides, which makes up antennae for WiFi and cellular networks, which will hopefully increase the reception of signals on the phone.  There’s a second microphone on the top of the phone which will help for the audio of the phone by canceling out background noise.  Also, the phone has a gyroscope in the phone in addition to the accelerometer and compass for superior six-axis movement.  This could supply more responsiveness in games and the so-called “augmented reality” apps.

The iPhone 4 features the same A4 processor as the iPad, which means it will be nice and snappy.  Also, the display is still the same size but features 4x the pixels of the old 3GS.  Apple has called this Retina Display because at a normal viewing distance the human eye cannot detect the pixels on the screen.  This definitely is a new and interesting move for Apple; no consumer electronics device has ever boasted a screen this detailed.  The word from the journalists who have seen this is that you have to see the display to believe the detail.

Last year the iPhone 3GS debuted with a decent camera.  The iPhone 4 sports a 5-megapixel camera with a small LED next to it to use as a flash or even continuous lighting on video recordings.  The camera can record 720p 30fps video.  They even announced a $4.99 iMovie app that allows you to easily edit clips together, overlay music and titles, and a bunch more.  I doubt I’d ever use that, but it’s pretty cool.

A low-resolution camera is also included on the front above the display.  It seems that you can take photos and even video with that camera as well.  But Apple also introduced a new featured called FaceTime, which allows you to call up an iPhone 4 user and move the call to a Wi-Fi video call.  It’s that thing that futurists and sci-fi writers have been saying for decades–people holding up their phone and talking with another person while staring at them.  Apple was pushing this for most of the last decade with iChat on their Macs, and now it’s on the phone.  However, right now it will be on iPhone 4 devices.  Apple said they are making it an “open standard”, but it’s very unclear what that means at this point.  For example, Skype wanted to say they’d work with the FaceTime protocol but then they backed off on that statement.  Apple made some emotional pleas for the usage of FaceTime with a husband watching his baby’s first steps over the phone and some deaf persons communicating via sign language.  Unfortunately, FaceTime does not work over the 3G network, only wireless networking at this point.  It may be a cool, new, exciting thing that everyone will be using someday, but I think it’s got a long way to go before that.

Of course, the new iPhone 4 includes all the features of the iPhone OS 4 that they previewed a couple months ago. Oh yeah, and it’s no longer called “iPhone OS”, it’s now “iOS” because it’s not just iPhones and iPod Touches anymore.  One new addition to iOS 4 that I like is multitasking also includes shortcuts to the music player control for the program that is currently playing music.  Also, this music control screen includes a button to lock the orientation, which is great for when you’re trying to read your phone while laying down and making sure the iPhone doesn’t try to switch layouts.

So what’s the cost?  The iPhone 4 starts at $199 for a 16GB model and goes up to $299 for 32GB.  The old iPhone 3GS at 8GB is now available for $99.  Anyone whose 2-year AT&T contract expires before the end of the year is eligible for an iPhone upgrade with an $18 upgrade fee.  Otherwise, if you want to start a new contract or not have a contract, you will have to pay hundreds of dollars more.  Apple’s iPhone 4 will be available in stores and shipped to your door on June 24th with pre-orders starting this Tuesday, June 15th.  Apple iOS 4 will be available for download for iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPod touches on June 21st as well.  Of course, the iPhone 4 will be available almost everywhere around the world by the end of the year at various prices and plans.

So what do I think?  I’m probably going to be getting one within the next month.  I do want to see how the iOS 4 performs on my iPhone 3G on June 21st.  However, the 3G has a much slower processor and will not be able to do the multi-tasking features that newer phones will be able to use.  When I got the phone almost two years ago (and even last year), I didn’t really care about the camera.  But after a couple years of use, there’s enough times I want to casually take a photo or two and the 1-megapixel camera on my 3G doesn’t really count.  This 5-megapixel camera will be nice for off-the-cuff concert photos and reviews of locations via Twitter and may be actually enough to use in family photo collections and such, so that will be a bonus as well.  In short, the iPhone 3GS these days is a bit slow and I wouldn’t mind getting a new one, and since it seems I can do so for a fairly small price (and a new two-year contract), I’ll probably make it happen.

First up, we have the iPad.  After seeing it in person, I can confirm that it is, in fact, mostly just an iPod Touch with a large screen.  On the other hand, it’s easily the most compelling tablet device to date despite a decade of Microsoft trying to get people to run Windows with their finger or a stylus.  The big difference?  Apple and the thousands of developers who have already released iPad apps have created these programs to use the user’s fingers for inputting data.  Windows has always been built for a screen, a mouse and a keyboard, but the iPad is made for you to swipe your finger across the screen and press the big buttons.  It’s also a very bright, glossy screen that seems to make anything on the device pop.  E-mail and web browsing are a breeze, given that you don’t want to write a very long post on the keyboard that pops up onscreen.  (On the other hand, you can use any Bluetooth wireless keyboard if you’d like to type more and can’t hack it with onscreen keys.)  Of course, it’s also great for watching movies or reading books as well.

Since the iPad hit stores, there have also been some great new iPad-specific applications released to the enjoyment of the world.  Although Hulu hasn’t yet released an app to watch all their TV shows, ABC.com has released a beautiful app to watch all their TV shows.  For those who have a Netflix subscription with Instant Streaming capability, you can watch anything they offer over streaming and it looks great as well.  One of my favorite apps to play around with a bit was any one of a couple of air hockey apps where two people could move their finger around the screen to control their virtual air hockey paddle and move the virtual puck into the other player’s goal.  And finally, bordering on the insane (or at least the “I spent $1,000+ to do what I could’ve for $15″), there’s a cool version of Scrabble for iPad where you can use your iPhones as your personal letter rack and then flick them off the iPhone screen and they will show up on the iPad ready to place them.  As usual with new technology, some are useful and some are just cool, eye-catching demos that people will most likely never use.

In my opinion, it’s a great device.  However, as fun as it would be for me to have one, there’s no way I can justify the $500+ price tag.  I’m not saying it’s too expensive, it’s just that I have very little use for the iPad in my life.  I carry a smartphone device and need a computer to do more substantial work on, and anything I can see using an iPad for I can do just as well on one of these other devices.  (Don’t worry, Apple, both my laptop and phone are also Apple devices, so you’re not losing out that much.)  It’s still early days in such technology, though.  I can see a potential future where most of us are using iPad-like devices instead of laptop computers in ten years, but considering that this device has been out for just over a week, it’s hard to say if that will come true or how the technology will mature.

Many are saying, and I agree for the most part, that the iPad does work pretty well as a simple, intuitive, stripped-down computer.  If all you want is to browse web sites, read e-mails and write the occasional short reply, then this may be a computer replacement that won’t have the confusing, crashing issues of a regular computer.  It will be limiting to most computer users if it is used as a replacement, though.  (One other downside: although you don’t need to sync it to a computer to use the device regularly, for some reason the iPad requires you to sync it to a computer before you can do anything with it.)

So about the forthcoming updates to the iPhone.  Hooray!  With the iPhone 4.0 update, users will be able to run third-party applications in the background.  Well, that is… mostly.  Apple knows that running a number of full applications on a small device like an iPhone is a quick way to drain the battery, so they’ve been resistant to doing it for a number of years.  Their current solution, at least as they present it, disallows developers from running their entire application in the background, but Apple has permitted certain services to run in the background.  From their preview on Thursday, it’s not completely clear exactly what they will allow and what they will not allow, but thankfully, many of the applications that the majority of users want to use in the background were there to show off working prototypes of using these new features.  (To clarify, Apple’s built-in applications have been multitasking since the release of the first iPhone but developers from other companies were not allowed to access these functions.)

The first big feature request is to listen to streaming audio just like the iPod functionality; the audio will continue to stream and play in the background while using other applications or browsing the web or e-mail.  The company Apple chose to demo this was Pandora, the personalized online streaming service.  The streaming worked great and there was even the ability to control Pandora while the phone is on its lock screen.  Seems like just what iPhone users such as myself wanted, even though I recently found that you currently can load an mp3 audio stream into Mobile Safari and it will also stream while other programs are running.

The next demo was an impressive one from the folks at Skype.  The features that Skype was able to now access made Skype nearly as powerful as the regular phone.  Skype is able to maintain an online connection and even receive calls while the phone is running other applications or in its locked, standby state.  If it’s as good as Apple and Skype are saying, you could use a recent model iPod Touch as a Wi-Fi Skype phone for a lot less than a cell phone’s fees.  As Apple explains it, this multitasking is not full multitasking because the full Skype program is not allowed to run in the background, but it’s definitely enough to do the things users really want.

The last couple features available for running in the background are, first, location awareness.  Programs such as Foursquare and Gowalla could keep track of location history and allow you to check in after the fact.  Of course, Apple’s first priority is battery life over function, so they say that these programs would only get access to cell phone location and not the battery-hogging, more detailed GPS location services.  Secondly, the ability to continue tasks in the background.  In the example mentioned, the Flickr app could finish uploading your photos in the background while other apps are running.  It’s not clear if you have to trigger these background activities before leaving the app or, for example, popular Twitter apps could periodically download new Twitter updates like the built-in e-mail app does.  One video demo that surfaced online did verify that you can kill background apps if you wish, but it seems that any app you leave will stay in the list of apps that could be running some of the limited multitasking processes.

The apps that are the base of the iPhone also get new features with iPhone 4.0.  The e-mail application will now have a global inbox; if you have more than one e-mail account, the e-mails can be viewed on one screen just like in desktop apps.  Also, the e-mail now can organize by thread, which was probably the original killer e-mail feature of Gmail when it debuted six years ago.  Many people have pages and pages of apps on their home screens, but thanks to the new ability to put apps into folders, better and more organization can be gained without all that horizontal swiping through screens.  And, finally, some of the flagship features of iPad will be included in iPhone 4.0, such as the ability to read iBooks from Apple’s bookstore and connect to other devices such as Bluetooth keyboards.  There are also other small features that we haven’t even heard about yet but will likely be welcome additions to the iPhone OS this summer.  Of course, a number of features that Apple were excited to tout were better tools for corporate IT personnel to manage their iPhone users as well.

Apple’s other major announcements for iPhone 4.0 are mostly new platforms for even more growth on the iPhone/iPod Touch market.  The first was GameCenter, a programmer API and gaming network.  This further cements these devices as a legitimate gaming platform and will give users a consistent user account, friends list, and high scores.  The screenshots showed the ability to see what games your friends are currently playing/watching as well as the ability to view high scores and get achievements for progress in games.

The other major business market for Apple is now called iAds, which is an advertising network that Apple controls for iPhone/iPod Touch devices.  Apple is definitely pushing to make their iAds content more interactive and engaging as well as not make you leave the app which featured the ad.  Apple said that Apple gets 40% of the ad cost and the developers of the apps that host ads get 60%, which may seem a lot, but considering they’re providing the infrastructure and probably detailed tracking, it’s a fair amount.  (Remember that Google does the same thing with its ad programs but refuses to disclose what percentage they take off the top.)

The major bad news? Unless you bought your iPhone or iPod Touch in the last 9 months, you will not get every feature in iPhone 4.0.  Apple was not specific on these feature degradations, but they did say that only iPhone models marked 3GS (note the “S”) or new iPod Touches released after September 2009 will be the only ones to receive the multitasking.  Apple claims that the older phones cannot run these features, and I think that more likely it is just that the older devices don’t have the RAM and/or the processing power to run these features well.  In other words, Apple could allow users to do these things, but they’re probably right that these older phones would be too slow for comfortable use with these new features.  In my experience, my iPhone, which I got about 18 months ago, was nice and fast on the iPhone 2.0 that it was released for, but once the iPhone 3.0 OS was available, my device definitely was a bit more full-featured but also a bunch more sluggish.  Also, the 3GS is notably faster, so many of the more demanding apps available today run slowly or even crash on my iPhone 3G.

What does this iPhone update mean for me?  I’ll probably get a new iPhone sometime this fall after my two-year contract is up.  Most likely, there will be a speedy new iPhone that runs lightning fast before that time comes.  When I bought my iPhone 3G 18 months ago, there was no phone that was half as useful and cool.  These days, the iPhone 3GS is on the same plane or maybe even a bit behind phones that run Google’s Android OS.  But with the promise of iPhone 4.0, Apple keeps up with the competition and, with some potential new phone models this summer, they can even stay ahead of the curve.  Now I’m just hoping for one with 128GB of flash memory on it so I can even hold all my music and podcasts in one device!

Steve Jobs is quoted as saying that the iPad is “a revolutionary device” and is “magical”.  Where’s the magic?  Well, it’s thin.  A half inch thin with nicely tapered edges on the back to make it look even thinner.  The back cover is a nicely-curved piece of aluminum and the front is a beautiful 9.7 piece of glass with an LCD screen behind it.  The screen is bright has great viewing angles but they still pack 10 hours of battery usage (and weeks of standby) into the guts behind the screen.  And, if you do go to the Apple Store and try one out in a couple months, you will most likely enjoy touching the screen and watching a video on it.  But I don’t think it’s magical or that everyone need save up their pennies to get the $499 device.

On the stage that they presented it, Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller demoed the new Apple iPad while sitting in a cushy living-room style chair.  And that’s just what Apple hopes you’ll think you need.  I carry my iPhone when on the go.  When I need to get serious work done, I go into my room and work on my laptop computer.  But although my laptop is portable and I could bring it into the living room for hanging out or personal entertainment, Apple would rather see me keep this lying about the living room.  I guess I wouldn’t mind, but I’m actually plenty comfortable watching videos and doing pretty much everything on my MacBook Pro or iPhone, thank you.  There will be the millions of Apple fans who will get one and maybe the rich who want another unique computer will get one, but it’s not yet apparent why I’d want an iPad if I’ve got the rest of the Apple family covering my needs.

As per usual, Apple has taken their popular, built-in iPhone apps and made them even more impressive.  With about 5x more screen real estate, the ability to browse through e-mail, contacts, calendar, photos and videos is even better looking and there’s much more room for ancillary features and buttons all over the screen.  And, of course, web browsing is really smooth and slick-looking.  Apple has also re-built their iWork suite for the iPad, building entirely new and intuitive ways to enter text and manipulate documents.  One of the standouts in this area is the input pads replacing the virtual keyboard: one that is a number pad, one that includes more of the common functions, and one that makes it really easy to input dates.  Also, there’s simple and beautiful interfaces for moving around slides in Keynote and text in Pages.  While these iWork apps are not as full-featured as the Mac OS X counterparts, most of the features of its bigger brother are retained, as opposed to the iPhone and iPod touch, where users can currently only view these documents.  The iPod functionality looks more like iTunes in its browsing and playback functionality as well, thanks to the bigger screen.

One of the main features of the iPod touch and iPhone is the myriads of apps that are available for free and for pay on the iTunes App Store, and the Apple iPad piggybacks on that very well.  Any iPod touch/iPhone app will run in a fifth of the screen area just as it is on the iPad’s smaller family members, but you can also quadruple the size to get a more full-screen feel to your old apps.  Even more exciting, though, is the great new ideas that developers will be coming up with over the coming months for the iPad.  At the event, The New York Times showed a beautiful app that displays the paper’s content in a way that resembles paper really well but also gives much more control over to the user in that they can change the columns, text sizing, and easily flip through sections without ever losing that newspaper feel.  No word of this yet, but I hope that an easy way to browse my favorite print magazines in full color comes out of this.

Gameloft and EA showed off games that use the bigger screen, touchscreen area and the new Apple A4 processor to show better graphics, but also to add more display bells and whistles such as maps and gauges as well as more controls, some of which can even be moved around the screen to wherever the user preferred to have them.  Also, MLB.com showed an updated version of their popular app that got me excited for April’s season opener: the Gameday screen on the Apple iPad has pretty much every statistic that MLB collects available on screen or with one swipe of the finger.  Also, they showed full screen live games and the ability to pull up lots of those statistics right on top of the live video in transparent overlays.  That will sell the iPad to those who want more than their transistor radios to follow baseball, I think.

The major problems with the Apple iPad are almost exactly the same as the iPhone: Apple is too controlling to make it a very useful device.  Developers such as EA, The New York Times, and MLB.com have been able to create cool apps.  But, as I said months ago, there are many ideas developers have for apps for iPad/iPhone, but they are not sure if Apple will let them sell it because it may compete with something Apple is building or one of Apple’s partners has created.  Also, especially with a more powerful machine such as the iPad, Apple needs to be allowing the iPad to run more than one program at once.  Yeah, only allowing one program to run makes the iPad seem faster, but all we’d really like to do is play Pandora (or some similar live streaming audio) in the background while browsing a site or working on a document.  Apple, in my opinion, needs to get these types of things fixed and figured out before real success will be seen among power users.

On the other hand, the reason Apple loves this closed platform they’ve built is because they control all of it and get a couple cents for every transaction made with their device.  There are other downsides, as well.  It’s not a great movie device because the screen is square and not widescreen so over a third of the screen will be black bars when viewing movies and video podcasts.  The base product has WiFi including the speedy 802.11n, but another $130 (and then $30/month) is required to get 3G cell phone data access and GPS capabilities, so it is not cheap to use this out of your house where you have the WiFi.  Also, there are a number of features of the Apple iPad that require fairly regular syncing with iTunes in order to be useful.  In a related note, there’s no way to use the iPhone or iPad as a USB hard drive and it is unclear as to how you get your iWork documents on the iPad, especially now that the iPad has (up to) 64GB of storage.

Even though I see no need for an iPad in my living room and in the living room of most people, there are some applications that may be perfect for the iPad.  One thing that Apple announced was the new iBook store.  In the iBook store, users of the iPad can purchase bestselling books that include full-color photos and even videos and users can change the font size and even the typeface of the book on the fly.  This may be a preferred view for those who currently enjoy the Amazon Kindle, and there’s talk of the iBook store selling textbooks and therefore it may be popular to give to students instead of carrying around piles of textbooks.  Persons who are on the road and manipulate geographic data will enjoy applications that use the big screen for maps and built-in GPS and compass data.  Medical applications may find the iPad useful, although some expect that the lack of the ability to write on the iPad to be a downside.  Another interesting application will likely be for artists, as some have been using the iPod touch and a program called “Brushes” to make professional artwork and the brilliant 9.7-inch display will no doubt bring in more creative opportunities.

Overall, the Apple iPad is a fairly impressive device looking for a market.  Only time will tell what that market is and how successful it will be.

I am leaving on Friday night, so I was a bit short on time to get the product. So, I went to the most convenient location: the Best Buy in the Mall of America, which is close to work. Sure enough, they had the product there. But wait? Wasn’t the MSRP at $69.99? Yeah, it is, but Best Buy is charging $72.99! Well, I need it pretty quick and I don’t have time to order it online, so I went ahead and purchased it. With MN sales tax, my total expense was $78.30.

After the fact, I decided to do some online price comparison. Of course, I went to Amazon.com, where they verify that the MSRP is $69.99. But lo, they’re selling it for $46.99! Just as a comparison, I priced out overnight shipping from Amazon.com for the same product, and Amazon.com will get it to my door tomorrow for $64.97.

Why the discrepancy? First, Best Buy knows that you came to their store to get this item. The Griffin ITrip is not like the DVD, CD, or even that Nintendo DS game where you just say, “Yeah, that’s not too pricey, I’ll get this too.” You need the iTrip. Therefore, Best Buy is going to make sure they can get all the profit out of the iTrip that they can. Amazon.com, on the other hand, offers the iTrip at just a bit above their cost of getting the product, most likely. If we assume both Best Buy and Amazon.com have get these units for the same price from Griffin, Best Buy just got over 35% of my product’s price as profit. On the other hand, Amazon.com didn’t charge me the 33% and kept the couple percent as profit and operating costs.

Is this highway robbery? Not really. Best Buy has massive costs they have to cover, such as renting all that retail space and paying undereducated employees. The part I think is highway robbery is the extra $3 over the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). I probably should have left and gone to the Apple Store, because if they have the product, I doubt they sell it for more than the MSRP.

First, many Marvel fans seem to think that being associated with Disney means that Spider-Man and Wolverine will be portrayed as kids stuff just like Mickey and Hanna Montana. To many, that’s all the Disney brand means. Remember that Disney is a multinational corporation that owns Disneyland, Disney World, Walt Disney Pictures and PIXAR, as well as other Hollywood studios such as Touchstone Pictures, Miramax, and Hollywood Pictures. Disney also owns The ABC Network, ESPN, as well as a couple music labels and a radio network. People don’t think of Wes Anderson’s first four films, most of Quentin Tarantino’s films, as well as Scream, Spy Kids, and Farenheight 9/11, but that’s because Disney doesn’t stick the mouse ears right on the screen. Not everyone in the world is fans of Mickey and Donald, and Disney still does business that caters to them.

Second, Disney is always looking for some of the hottest properties out there. Marvel Entertainment, a leader in the comic book world, is definitely a great new business to get into when looking for more avenues to make profit. Marvel used to sell the movie rights to other studios for such things as X-Men, Spider-Man, and The Fantastic Four. But more recently Marvel Entertainment has been financing and producing the movies themselves. So far, with films such as Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, the production quality and the reception by the fans has been even better than before Marvel Studios was formed. Marvel and Disney did say that the distribution agreements with Paramount, Sony, and Fox are going to be continued. I can see Disney wanting to buy back some of these rights, but it shows that Disney knows Marvel has done things right and they don’t want to ruin that for the rather small distribution fees. Also, the news also cited that Disney has many hot properties for the female market such as Hanna Montana and The Jonas Brothers and are looking for more products to capitalize on the male teen and adult, and that’s right where Marvel is at the top of the list.

Third, I think Marvel does stand to gain from the help of Disney. George Lucas may be known as the one who started “merchandising” for movies, but Disney definitely brought merchandising to a whole new level and does it in smart, intelligent ways that cater to their audience. Will we see cool Superman or X-Men rides at Disney World? That could be awesome! Will we see more Iron Man toys? Probably. One quote from Disney CEO Bob Iger, who brought Disney back from the brink of losing its magic touch four years ago, was that PIXAR Animation Studios is excited about working on Marvel properties. (Think the action of The Incredibles with some of the world’s best-known comic book characters.) Also, Marvel has over 4,000 characters, but they don’t really have the money to make movies for even a fraction of those characters. With the financial muscle of Disney, I think we can expect plenty more Marvel content in the future.

Don’t get me wrong. Disney could screw this up really bad. However, for these reasons and others, I think it’s too much in Disney’s best interest to let Marvel do their thing and help them out. In that, I mean that Disney sees the dollars rolling in with the acquisition of Marvel, as long as they stay smart. The last four years since Bob Iger’s takeover as CEO has been Disney’s best in the last decade, and with smart business decisions like this, I think Disney may get even better.

As Google’s Mat Balez notes in his blog post announcing the Latitude release, Google actually developed a native app for Latitude… only to have Apple, uh, suggest that the big G redo the concept as a web app to avoid user confusion with the Maps app. Really? Must have been an interesting phone call.

No kidding. Google spent all their sweet time, no doubt, making a really nice and powerful iPhone app to allow you to manage contacts and see where your friends are on a map. Then, while submitting it to the iTunes App Store, they’re told that Apple will not accept this. Great, that’s a couple months of programmer time down the drain for Google.

Hold on a second here, though. When Apple announced the App Store, they announced their venture capital friends were putting together a fund for new small businesses to make apps for the phone. One of the first companies that got in on that cash was Pelago Inc., which started a service call Whrrl. I’ve since then deleted that app and used one that a number of my friends are on called Loopt. All of these apps are already doing the same thing that the Google Latitude app wanted to do, but apparently because Google is a much bigger partner and competitor of Apple’s they do not get the option to do an app like this. It doesn’t make any sense, and it costs Google thousands of dollars down the drain just because Apple can axe anything they don’t like for their phone.

It’s even a bigger problem for Apple and third-party hardware makers. Apple does give an API to interface with hardware devices that a company develops and plugs into the iPhone. Companies have already made nice car mounts that will charge your phone and add a couple other features. Medical service providers have made adapters to hook up various types of medical equipment, and Apple has been fine with this. But add some cool thing that will let you do things with still or video cameras? A cool way to import video to your iPhone? The company will likely spend millions developing that hardware component and thousands creating a cool iPhone app to interface with the hardware. But, in the end, if Apple wants to say “no” to the app submission the company has a cool hardware gadget with no way to use it.

On one hand, Apple does all this controlling of applications in the iPhone App Store in the name of protecting the customer, and in some cases they are protecting us from crappy products. But, with situations like this (and some other things that they should have protected us from but got out) it’s proving that not only are they doing a terrible job of protecting us, but Apple is too often blocking the cool stuff. Often Apple is even blocking the cool stuff because they want to release their own version a couple months later.

I think that Apple should keep the platform more open. We would get more crap, but the iPhone App Store ecosystem would be even more healthy and have even cooler solutions for iPhone users. Besides, without Apple protecting us from the crap, we would still mark it as crap and not use it. I’m not saying that Apple cannot host the app store, but let it run free and see it become even more useful and powerful.

Like the Dominion Trilogy that Parrish released the last couple years, Offworld starts with a mysterious hook. Everyone is gone. Everyone. It’s 2033 and the first manned mission to Mars has returned to earth successfully, but no one is there to greet them. Even the animals and bugs are mysteriously gone. After four years by themselves in space, this is hardly the welcome the team wanted.

Thus, the crew sets out to unravel this mystery. Along the way, the reader finds that these astronauts have their own personal secrets. Plus, there’s an anti-social young woman who seems to have spent her whole life on the streets and is the only person to not have disappeared. Not to mention that it seems that nature itself is trying to stop them from finding the answers.

Within Offworld, Robin Parrish creates characters that are as flawed and realistic as they are NASA’s biggest heroes. Throughout all his books so far, the characters have always had some mystery, such that just when you think you know them, they surprise you with a new wrinkle to their story. These are definitely no exception, and with less than a half-dozen main characters, there’s plenty of time to get to know them well. Although the character development has very little action to it, this was probably my favorite part of the novel.

Speaking of action, I found this the hardest book yet to put down. Nearly every chapter ends on a total cliffhanger. As many have said before me, Parrish’s books will someday do really well as summer blockbuster films, and Offworld is no exception. (That is, as long as Roland Emmerich doesn’t direct it and make the climax happen in New York.) In fact, the book was so intense I finished it less than 24 hours after picking it up. Good thing it was a weekend, or else I would have suffered at work from either sleep deprivation or thinking of nothing but what might happen next.

So what about Parrish being a “Christian”? Does the book create some big allegory to our life in Christ? Do some of the main characters get “saved”? Thankfully, no, Parrish’s books are not preachy. The heroes of the book exude characteristics that Christ teaches us like selflessness, hope, and sound morals. Some characters beg a higher power for help, but Parrish doesn’t slow the story down with any theological lessons. In my opinion, it’s great to see persons of faith writing positive, engaging stories that are for everyone, not just a church-going audience.

If you’re looking for a fun, engaging read during the heat of summer, check out Offworld. I’m hoping it’ll be hitting theaters in Summer 2013, but don’t count on it; get the book now and you’ll be ahead of everyone else.

P.S. – Going back to my old days with Robin Parrish publishing his early revisions of novels on the Internet, I hope something like that continues. I don’t read many novels, but because Parrish’s stories were released (at least partially) for free on the Internet, I was hooked. I’m not exactly sure if the first chapter will suffice for me as a hook to get me to buy the book – I’d like to see more to promote upcoming books online.

First, the folks at Development Seed, who put on the conference, did an amazing job at the graphics for the conference as well as the website functionality.  First, there’s the DrupalCon DC website, which even won a design mention from Smashing Magazine.  It’s a great background and great artwork that immediately brings a DC feel.  They translated this graphic design to the posters in the lobby, like this one:

Also, the booklet with the map of the conference rooms and session schedule had another version of this graphic:

I also love how the booklets even have the Metro underneath the ground, because that’s also one of my favorite parts of DC in the first place.

The DrupalCon DC swag was also really fun.  First, there’s the badge that verifies you paid for the conference and lists your name, which looks like a coffee cup:

And, finaly, the DrupalCon DC bag seems to be a pretty nice, reusable grocery bag with a sarcastic-looking design of a recycling bin on the side.  I like it, though, because it’s not just a crappy messenger bag or something similar that will either break or you’ll just throw it out.

Another fun item is that, before the show’s keynotes, the large projection screens show Twitter messages from people about #drupalcon.  Here’s one of my Tweet’s on the screen – my Tweet is about 2 feet tall:

And yes, although I didn’t really attend any of the parties, many folks were getting creative in the party invites or other swag that they gave out.  My favorite is for tonight’s party put on by Lullaobot, which is a real floppy disk and emulates an old pin printer’s look:

First, let me say that when the debates and the inagauration took place, I had no problem finding video of it later in the day or the next morning on iTunes’ Podcast area. In fact, on a couple, I already had the feed on my iTunes and it just started coming in. But now, 24 hours after Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress, I can’t find a video version to easily load onto my iPod.

iTunes is definitely to blame on at least one count. The browsing of the iTunes Podcast area is abysmal at best and unusable at worst. You can find the top things and the ones featured, but you’ve got no good ways to browse other things. And don’t think the search box is going to help you much, because every time you type in a search it searches the whole iTunes Store and you get all this other crap until you click to say, “I want only podcasts, you stupid program! That’s why I was browsing in the Podcasts section!” Even then, searching for “Obama address Congress” in the search box give you nothing but one radio station’s commentary on it. If you broaden it to “Obama address” you get a couple top podcasts that do feature Obama giving an address, but this gets me to my next point.

First, Barack Obama’s White House administration does have their own podcast, and the weekly radio address is well-presented via this podcast in both video or audio formats. I definitely am subscribed to this podcast, although I recommend doing your research afterwords through other news sources, because even if he’s the President, you can’t really take his word on everything. Second, ABC News offers the next best thing: a podcast with the exact same stuff that they host and deliver. I like that they did put the address in audio form in their audio version of the podcast, but I want video! Their video version of the weekly address podcast has no such item. For the debates, other podcasts such as Anderson Cooper 360 also put the videos in their podcast feed, but none of them are offering it up this time.

The web-savvy crowd at my blog may say, “But Dan, it’s an hour long! That’s a big file and that’s lots of badwidth!” Yeah, you’re right, but that didn’t stop them for the Inaguration address or any of the debates. In fact, the debates were longer but they were done in great video quality that was easy to load on your iPhone. Plus, if you want, throw an advertisement or two in there, I’ll watch it if it’s interesting or is only 30 seconds long. Then, there’s the others who will say, “Dan, I already watched all of it on Hulu.” Yeah, I know, but I can’t load that video into my iPhone for my daily commute. Then, as TJ said, I could try loading it up via YouTube on my iPhone, but I like being able to see Obama if I’m going to watch the video, and the only that the YouTube video quality on the iPhone is good for is videos of a cat on the Roomba. Plus, when I hit the tunnel under the airport then the streaming video will just stop playing, probably, and that’s no fun.

Hopefully, in the next couple hours, a solution will appear. If they do, don’t let any tech person from the major network that put it out say it takes over a day to encode a video for the iPod, because it doesn’t. Otherwise, I may just have to stay uninformed for the rest of my life. Or, worse yet, I’ll have to read a transcript.