My top 10 iPhone wishes for 2009

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

  1. Wi-fi detector that detect fully open hotspots by testing access to a webpage
  2. Search function in emails by sender, recipient, subject and content
  3. Tethering using Wi-Fi to share the connection with my MacBook Air
  4. Cut & Paste at least between emails, SMS and ideally between applications
  5. Viewing, editing and sharing of Keynote, Pages and Numbers documents
  6. Keynote presentation mode using iPhone TV output and touch interface 
  7. Video recording, simple editing and sharing with MobileMe and YouTube
  8. iChat client with sound and video support at least over Wi-Fi
  9. Hardware : SD card slot, zoom, flash, compass and +5 Megapixels camera
  10. iTunes additional Services : Books, Magazines and Porn

Read more | Comments (1) | December 25th, 2008

Imagine a wiki for collaborative musical composition

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

There is one lingua franca that is understood around the world by most musicians, disregarding their origin, mother language or style : the musical notation.

Let’s create a wiki (read & write pages), that would be able to display musical notation, for example using a combination of special musical typefaces and flash similar to sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement). To edit the pages you could write using keyboard keys (A, B, C, …) a piano scale, or click in a rich interface to draw notes on scales, like in early musical composition softwares.

Music is by essence the collaborative effort of composers and musicians to achieve a common piece of art. Now imagine what musician around the world could do with a wiki web based platform to share their compositions, collaborate across space and time to create global symphonies, improve each other compositions, rework existing pieces, …

This idea is now free for anyone to pickup. Please mention me in the credits, so my kids can be proud of me ;-)

Read more | Comments (0) | October 1st, 2008

Being Brice Le Blevennec

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

For those of you who toughs that Spike Jonze’ Being John Malkovitch was a fiction, I must now confess that this cult movie is a ripoff of my biography. Many years ago a belgian puppeteer took control of me. This is why often during brainstorm at Emakina I seems to behave like if I was completely insane, pretending to invent mad concepts, sometimes even pitching them to very conservative customers at the risks of loosing all my hard earned credibility.

The truth is that there is somebody in my head, seeing reality through my eyes, manipulating my body, makes me behave strangely, … this is not really me. I’m actually a very boring person, with little imagination. My favorite past time is Solitaire on Windows 95 and I hate burgers. But nobody believe me when I tell the truth!

Sometime, he leave my mind, usually during football competitions or Formula 1 races. During one of those relief periods, I could do some research, and look what I found now…

My Puppet Master

This puppeteer is actually an digital creative, frustrated by miserable studies, who use me to seek revenge by achieving a successful career as digital creative. According to my sources, he found a portal to my mind between floor 2 and 3 in the Belgacom Proximus building around 2001. During a few years he just spied my boring life, trying to emulate me, but since 2005 he took control of me and use his talent to fool the world !

I know it’s hard to believe this story, but after an gigantic mistake, probably due to his sizable ego, I could finally locate his secret blog… On which I found this picture as an indisputable proof. I hope it’s convincing enough for the doctors to let me go now. I want to go try Solitaire on Windows Vista… and eat a salad.

Read more | Comments (1) | September 4th, 2008

I want an Apple Media Server

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

I think it’s about time that Apple give us a decent Home Media Server. Have a look at the Windows Home Server offering (currently buggy), and you’ll immediately understand how an Apple quality copycat could enhance your digital lifestyle.

The principle : Instead of filling up your Mac hard drive with music, photos and video, then sync it with your iPhones, iPods, Apple TVs and laptops, you could store all your media on a wifi enabled NAS (Network Attached Storage) running an iTunes server.

For appealing to windows users, it could also run a DLNA (Digital Living Network Association) server for devices that conform to Universal Plug and Play Audio/Video standard (Windows Media Center, Xbox 360, PS3 and most Media Streamers).

There are already numerous products that answer that definition, like the Synology, the QNAP, the Thecus or Netgear ReadyNAS.

But beside looking ugly and making a lots of noise, they are too complex to setup, their interfaces have very low usability (or none), and are designed and marketed to Windows geeks. They probably does not sell much. However they demonstrate the concept, just like the Creative Nomad Jukebox, demonstrated the feasibility of an Hard Drive based personal music player… before Apple created the iPod.

There is a strong need in the market, demonstrated by lot’s of discussion about iTunes Server NAS solutions or guides to build your own geek solution… Clumsy and too expensive but that give an idea of how much money and time some are ready to spend for such a product… still imperfect. Album covers are missing when accessed from an iTunes server, they are incompatible with iPhone Apple Remote, Apple TV, video can’t be accessed using that protocol, so you must switch to UPnP protocol compatible Media Streamer with another crappy interface, etc. A real techno mess.

So why would an Apple product succeed ? Of course it would be a beautiful object, affordable, easy to setup, with good software, … Of course it would integrate with your Mac and PC running iTunes and FrontRow, your iPod Touches, iPhones and Apple TVs. But Apple has other uniques technologies that combined, can turn a good geek idea in a great mass market product.

First, the Apple Media Server would be easy to access from any Internet connection. It would simply register to your Back To My Mac account like your home computers.

Secondly, it would run on 802.11n wifi providing enough bandwidth for streaming video to your Apple TV. It would register itself using Bonjour and appear auto-magically on your iTunes Mac, PC, iPhones, iPod Touches and Apple TV. Maybe even on your iCar. It would mount on your desktop in AFS, just like the Time Capsule or an hard-drive shared using an Airport Extreme.

But now, the killing feature… Your media storage needs will keep growing more and more, years after years. Until then most of us managed our storages need by buying bigger and bigger hard drives. Actually a thousand times bigger every 10 years. Ideally the Apple Media Server should have no drive size limits.

As recently announed, Apple is working at integrating Sun’ ZFS file system in Snow Leopard Server, the next iteration of it’s server grade Operating System. ZFS allow storage pooling and dynamic volume expansion.

Now imagine the Apple Media Server, a NAS (nearly) infinitely upgradable using Firewire or USB hot-swappable drive that you could plug on your Apple Home Media Server running a stripped down version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server with ZFS support on a slightly upgraded version of the motherboard of the Apple TV with the server grade hard drive in the Time Capsule.

Your personal cloud… of unlimited size.

While searching Google for links to enrich this post, I discovered the Mac predictions website. It seems that I am not the only one having the same idea. I think the Apple Media Server should not sit in your living room but in your attic, basement or in a closet, but we basically agree on the product features.

Let’s hope that Apple agree too ;-)

Read more | Comments (1) | August 16th, 2008

How Apple will takeover the living room

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

About two year ago, in my living room, I swaped my noisy MythTV Linux based XPC by a MacMini running EyeTV with an EPG subscription and connected to analog cable TV with an Elgato TV Tuner Stick. The MacMini was connected using DVI to an 51″ Plasma screen. EyeTV integrated with FrontRow and the Apple Remote. I could browse my music library, play live TV, see the Movie trailers fromt the Apple site. It was great.

Then I couldn’t resist buying an Apple TV. It synced over-the-air with my iMac, so I could play podcast, photos, videos in HD Ready over the component connection of my plasma screen. My Apple TV was connected with the optical connection to a Yamaha Natural Sound 7.1 Home Theatre Receiver. I could play my music in full digital from the MP3 or AAC file to the speakers.

Then, with a US voucher, I managed to setup my Apple TV with a US account and started renting HD movies with 5.1 sound, complete TV Series, and more music. All from my couch. It was still great… However to program TV show recording, I had to switch from the Apple TV to the Mac Mini : from my DVI input to my component input on the Plasma, from one input to another on my amplifier, from one Apple Remote to another, and from the Apple TV interface to FrontRow, to EyeTV… that was silly. I quickly realized that I could record a show on the MacMini, let eyeTV compress it to H264 and upload it to my iTunes Library. As my Apple TV was syncing videos with iTunes Library, I could watch my recording from my Apple TV, offering a somehow integrated experience. But I missed the high quality of the original recording. On the good side, I could also watch my recording with my iPod Video and iPhone. Still, the whole experience was a bit clumsy and I had to maintain and update two devices for what should obviously be integrated in one, like does Windows Media Center on the dark side.

Now let observe the Apple TV back panel. You’ll notice an mysterious unused USB connector… So here is my prediction :

Apple will release a USB Stick Tuner, compatible with DVB-T SD and HD (which require no re-compression) for it’s Apple TV and will add an EPG to the interface.

Why the delay ? Apple is probably waiting for DVB-T/DVB-C to become mainstream as they’ll probably want the experience to be qualitative and recorded digital broadcast (Mpeg 2 or Mpeg 4) are identical to the live signal. The codec in Mpeg 4 can even be H264, just like Apple Movies.

It’s not in Apple style to catch up with competition, so now let’s imagine what Apple could add to this product. First they would maybe release not one but several USB Tuner Sticks. One for Freeview (digital terrestrial TV), one for DVB-C (digital cable TV), one for analog, with an hardware H264 chip like the Turbo 264. You could switch them when you move from one channel provider (cable, satellite, Terrestrial) to another, or from SD to HD, or from one standard for encoding to another (still te be invented). Much better than a single build-in interface…

Your Apple TV is in reality a complete, Macintosh computer hidden in a tiny pizza box, running MacOS X (Tiger). When not recording or playing, it could run a background process that would compress the huges Mpeg 2 or Mpeg 4 recording to pristine Quicktime H.264 then sync them with your main iTunes library … which in turn would sync with your iPod Video, iPod Touch, and iPhone over USB. So you wouldn’t even have to do any action to have your favorite recording in your pockets.

As it knows your Apple ID, your Apple TV could also register itself with MobileMe Back To My Mac service and run a QuickTime streaming server. You would be able to stream recordings (those just compressed in H.264) over the Internet from any iTunes client, and even from your iPhone over a Wi-fi connection, just like with the SlingMedia Mobile service or for your music with Simplify Media.

An option would allow the Apple TV (which hard drive is limited to either 40 or 160 gigabytes) to store the QuickTime files ready for streaming to a 1 terabyte Time-Capsule and a firmware update would add iTunes server services to the Time-Capsule.

When watching your recording on your Apple TV, you’ll use the Apple Remote for control, but Apple would add TV show and EPG control in Remote for iPhone (which already control playing Music Videos on your Apple TV when they are in an iTunes synced playlist).

For those without tuner, you could stream your USB webcam video like with Remote Buddy.

Apple would also release an EPG client software for the iPhone that would store your recording settings on MobileMe. Of course your Apple TV would sync with MobileMe too. So it would be possible to program recording from anywhere in the world.

Without recording anything, it would be possible to stream live TV from your Apple TV to any Mac on your home LAN thanks to 802.11n bandwith (like you can do it today with music on Airport Express). From anywhere in the world, you’ll be able to watch a lower resolution, switch channels, start a recording… from your iPhone over wi-fi or any iTunes client on MacOS X or Windows. Just like with Sony’ LocationFree TV and the PSP. In September Sony will launch PlayTV a HD DVB-T tuner with DVR software for the PlayStation 3. They recently launched their HD Movies online store in the US. So you’d better hurry up Apple !

Read more | Comments (0) | August 7th, 2008

Changed my mind. The next Apple product should be the iCar …

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

… an in-dash car entertainment, communication and navigation system.

I was reading about the beta firmware 2.1 for the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod Touch and it seems we will be getting turn-by-turn direction in the Google Maps iPhone application.

Now just imagine a standard in-dash unit which at the press of the finger would reveal an touch sensitive LCD screen, controlling what would essentially be the electronic of an iPhone. Add some radio DAB/FM/AM circuitry – similar to the Apple FM iPod remote for the iPod 4G – and optionally a connector for a boot CD changer, and you’ll get the ultimate in-car entertainment (featuring iPod music, video, podcasts, TV series and Movies), communication (with Bluetooth for headphones, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, Wi-fi) and navigation (using Google Maps) solution.

Let’s call it “iCar”, as I couldn’t find a better codename.

With iCar you will be able to drive in town and have restaurants, hotels, museum, night clubs, gas stations, and other points of interest informations pulled from the internet using 3G or Wi-fi internet connection and displayed live on your moving map. Click theirs icons for turn-by-turn driving directions, rating, comments, menus, calling them or send them a message.

Park the car and wait a few seconds for download and watch pictures from MobileMe Galleries and Flickr taken around your car location do a nice slide show. This thanks to your GPS and the localization feature of the iPhone.

When listening a cool song on the DAB or FM radio, a button will trigger Shazam (or an Apple equivalent) and offer you to buy the track, music video or complete album from the iTunes Music Store. After waiting a few seconds to download a track over 3G, you’ll be able to listen to it forever.

When not driving, watch podcasts, videos, tv series, movies, … all on the beautiful LCD screen.

Park your car within Wi-fi distance of your home computer and sync your iTunes media with your iCar automagically, just like with an Apple TV. For those unable to park their computer so close, an iPod connector will permit connecting any iPod or iPhone and syncing media down to the drive or transfer purchases done on the iCar back to your iPod.

Thanks to MobileMe, iCar will also sync over-the-air with your email, calendar and address book. Great to have a look at your agenda without getting your iPhone out of your pocket. But even better, you’ll have only one finger touch to get your driving direction for a contact in your address book, or the next meeting in your calendar!

With Apple Speech Recognition, and Text to Speech technologies currently included in Mac OS X, you’ll be able to ask verbally your Apple iCar to read your day’s agenda aloud, or your latest emails. You’ll even be able to dictate short messages and emails.

This would be a revolutionary product and an entirely new platform for third party application developers. A specific App Store would allow downloading applications to iCar over-the-air. Facebook will release an app that will locate your friends (those who agree) on the map, thanks to their iPhone and iCars GPS. Trip advisor will release an application that allow sharing reviews and rating for any place around your car. Apple will release Remote, an application that allow locking your car remotely and driving it from a distance for Batman like performance ;-)

Read more | Comments (1) | July 26th, 2008

The next Apple product : a digital camera

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

The current crop of digital camera is great hardware. I have always be a loyal fan of the Canon IXUS range and bought like 5 of them from the first 2 Megs to the latest 10 Megs (accidentally broken). Recently I bought a Panasonic Lumix TZ5 and it’s (mostly) great. It can snap pictures up to 9 Megs and even record video in HD definition. But the interface is just rubbish. I general Camera software is just lame. It almost hasn’t evolved in a decade.

Apple could design a revolutionnary digital camera, the iCamera. First by it’s form factor : a touchscreen, twice the size of an iPhone, slightly thicker. Video resolution would be HD Ready (720p), so the Screen resolution would be 720 x 1320 pixels at the same dpi res as an iPhone.

Then it would also be new hardware combination, built on a simplified version of the electronic of an iPhone (removing the bluetooth, GSM circuitry) and a Casio Exilim (or similar). The rest of the space would be used for batteries and memory storage.

As of course recording would be on solid state memory (Apple bought a lot of memory to manufacturers) or a 1.8 in 4200 rpm hard drive. It will start probably start with something like 64 Gigs of SSD / 160 Gigs of HD, but would quickly evolve to 128 Gigs of SSD or 320 Gigs of HD…

But storage wouldn’t be an issue as Apple iCamera will of course sync over the air (Wifi 802.11n) with a Apple TV, MobileMe Galleries, iPhones and over Firewire / USB 2.0 with Macintoshes and iPods.

But the real revolution would be great Apple software ! Of course the shooting software will allow Photo Booth like live effects, including background replacement, optical and digital zoom, special flash modes, … But the killing feature would be iMovie 08 and Aperture like video and photo software editors, running on the camera device, using the touch screen interface.

This revolutionary product would define an entirely new category of devices that would allow shooting, editing and publishing Hi def still photography and HD quality videos on the field. This will especially makes HD video easy to produce which may leverage the whole HD video economy.

Digital Still and Video Cameras is a category with great hardware waiting for a decent “Apple quality level” software like computers, music players and mobile phones. Please Apple, give the Nikon, Canon, Sony and Panasonic a lesson in software engineering. Millions of families are waiting for a better experience.

Read more | Comments (1) | July 24th, 2008

Need a Startup Idea ?

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

With Scribd you can publish and embed documents. With SlideShare you can publish and embed presentations. Now what I need is a way to publish SpreadSheets as flash embeds. In exchange of this free Internet Startup Idea(tm), let me know when it’s up and running. I need it badly.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 4th, 2008

Lastminute creativity

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

It is 14.45 and you’re waiting for check in. Another flight delay is communicated. And you’re waitin, and waiting … Very boring and depressing. Lastminute.com knows everything about flying, including the malfunctions. Therefore… (source Maarten)

Read more | Comments (0) | May 27th, 2008

The String Theory …

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

I’m reading a lot lately about it. A lot of scientific research try to demonstrate empirically that this theory of physics could explain the whole universe in one complex formula. I think it does, and for a practical demonstration of the String Theory just go to any Brazil beach. After this little joke, I should reveal that this post is my first experiment with Yahoo Shortcuts, a Wordpress plugin that allow you to enrich you blog posts with Yahoo content, maps, photos from flickr and many more Yahoo content…

Read more | Comments (3) | December 23rd, 2007

A 4 billions years story summarized by Stark

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas, Movies

Read more | Comments (0) | December 14th, 2007

Pee online it World First Virtual Toilet!

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

Read more | Comments (2) | October 22nd, 2007

Test sur PSP de la Go!Cam et de Go!Edit

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas, Movies

Ceci est probablement une première mondiale : j’ai enregistré une petite video sur une PSP avec la minuscule camera USB Go!CAM. Puis je l’ai éditée/truquée/trafiquée directement sur ma PSP avec le logiciel de manipulation video Go!Edit (version européenne). Je l’ai exportée en AVI, puis toujours sur la PSP, dans le navigateur Web je l’ai uploadée sur mon compte YouTube. Voila le résultat, tout est fait avec une PSP et un accès Wifi. Je précise que le coté craboutcha des images est fait exprès ;-)

En dehors d’y penser, l’astuce consiste à (paradoxalement) désactiver le support de Javascript et de Flash dans la navigateur Web de la PSP pour arriver a acceder a la page d’Upload de Youtube qui explose la mémoire de la PSP si on essaye d’y accéder normalement. Encore un processus qui devrait marcher logiquement et simplement et qui s’est transformé en absurdité. Et c’est même pas de Microsoft ;-)

Ca me donne envie de vous raconter une petite anecdote. J’ai acheté la Go!Cam aujourd’hui suite a d’innombrable articles, essentiellement des copier/collé du communiqué de presse de Sony repris sans aucune vérification, qui vantaient cette camera, le logiciel qui l’accompagne (Go!Edit) et tout particulièrement la possibilite de télécharder les videos réalisées directement depuis la PSP vers Internet.

Tout ceci etait mensonger. La camera est un bitouniot minuscule de plastique, le logiciel est à télécharger via le Web (si vous y arrivez, voir ci-dessous) et il ne comporte aucune fonction pour uploader vos video sur internet. Apparement cette fonction de la version Japonaise du logiciel a été enlevée de la version européenne et personne ne l’a signalé à la boite de PR de Sony. Enfin aucun des centaines de blogeurs n’a vérifié l’info et aucun des utilisateurs ne s’est fatigué à écrire un article sur son blog pour dénoncer cette arnaque (maintenant c’est fait ;-)

Parlons à présent du téléchargement du logiciel Go!Edit (qui n’est mystérieusement même plus livré avec la caméra sur un UMD). La Go!Cam est livrée avec un petit dépliant papier qui renvoie vers l’URL http://www.yourpsps.com/goedit pour télécharger le logiciel mais c’est un véritable exploit technologique d’y arriver (en tout cas avec un Mac). J’ai du y passer a peu près 2 heures et je suis pas un nain de jardin.

En effet cette page renvoie vers un site à accès (réservé aux membres de la communauté Sony PSP) qui utilise une Applet Java (non certifiée) pour télécharger le soft directement dans la PSP uniquement si celle-ci est connectée en USB à votre Mac; et ceci ne fonctionnant correctement que sous FireFox.

Le problème est tous ces conditions sont à deviner car rien n’est expliqué nulle part et aucun message d’erreur ne s’affichent sauf que la page reste blanche a divers stade du processus de téléchargement. De plus sous Safari (le navigateur par default de Mac OS X) on a droit à une petite touche de sadisme pervers puisque tout semble se passer correctement jusqu’au clic sur le bouton telecharger qui ne fait rien du tout. Tu as beau attendre comme un idiot, rien ne se passe, et tu ne sauras jamais pourquoi a moins de tomber sur mon post grace a Google ;-)

Bref ce service est tellement mal réalisé, en marge de tout standard contemporain, que je suis quasi certain d’être le seul au monde (j’ai retourné tout Google) à avoir réussi à utiliser ce service de téléchargement pour télécharger le logiciel Go!Edit de Sony sur un Mac. Si vous y êtes arrivé, je serais ravi de faire votre connaissance, vous êtes probablement un sacré malin.

Petite conclusion : la caméra de Sony et sa PSP sont deux merveilles, mais une fois encore Sony démontre son incapacité à transformer une bonne idée, une technologie révolutionnaire en un produit utilisable, en négligeant certains chainons de l’expérience, en particulier le web. En effet Sony est incroyablement incompétent pour écrire des applications Web correctes. Cette incompétence est d’autant plus phénoménale que les investissements et les moyens qui ont du être affectés à ce service dépassent probablement l’entendement.

Ma joie d’avoir réussi à me procurer ce produit s’est peu a peu transformée en un horrible calvaire, un combat pour obtenir une concrétisation de la vague promesse du produit. Bref, tout le contraire d’Apple qui de l’ouverture du packaging à la souscription d’un service en ligne, en passant par l’interface du produit, maitrise l’expérience du client avec un perfectionisme admirable.

Read more | Comments (10) | August 5th, 2007

Apple next product should be the iFrame

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

We all knows those digital picture frames which allow parents to have their kids digital pictures on their desk. They exists since many years. Most of those digital picture frames have a slot for memory cards, usually SD and their interface are usually hidden buttons or a button clutered remote. Recently some of them started playing some videos (never QuickTime), MP3 music (never ACC), or having a wifi interface that allow PC users (using a Windows only software) to upload their picture remotely on their Digital Picture Frames. Ceiva has even a model that retrieve the photos from an internet connection (dialup, wifi ou wired). Cheap hardware is there but as always bad software kills the good idea. And this is a Windows only world, just like before the iPod, before the iPhone… and there is a need for us Macintosh lovers.

Now this is what Apple should create : an iFrame.

Obviously the Apple iFrame would allow you to photocast your pictures from iPhoto over wifi with at last a decent interface. It would slideshow the pictures with nice and smooth transitions. But it could also play quicktime movies, AAC tunes. Using a simple Apple Remote, or at the touch of a (single) button, the iFrame would also allow you to browse through “non interactive” widgets, like the Weather, Stockquotes, all kind of RSS feeds, special alerts, short messages (iChat?), you .mac inbox unread email count, your day calendar, …

iFrame range would go from a small 7″ cheap model (640 x 480 pixels) model for consumers to large 17″ model designed for professional that want to showcase their portfolio on their walls. All of them with stunning Apple design enclosures.

Technically Apple could create such a product by starting from the iPhone technology. As Digital Picture Frames are plugged in an outlet, Apple could remove the expensive battery. As iPhoto would resize the pictures to your iFrame screen-size on sync, Apple could save more money by downsizing the 8 Gb memory to 1 Gb. Apple has a technology in the iPhone which allow to display huge JPEG with a low memory. So viewing camera shots directly from the SD slot wouldn’t be an issue. Apple would of course remove all the GSM components, and keep the ARM processor, Operating System and the iFrame software (regularly updated over wifi internet). Finally Apple would replace the touch enabled small iPhone screen by larger non sensitive screens. All this should allow price ranging from 199$ for the small 7″ model to 499$ for the 17″.

Bonus idea : Apple could also create a “mobile” iFrame model that would use a GSM circuit (GPRS and SIM card) to receive data at location without Wifi, like your grandmother home. The whole family could photocasts their pictures to a computer disabled grandmother. Even send pictures by MMS in europe. Wouldn’t that be great ?

Steve Jobs, I hope you will find this post as I am sure, you will get it.

Read more | Comments (0) | July 30th, 2007

Pourquoi Tunz.com peut changer le monde

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas, Thoughts

Tunz.com permet des paiements entre personne à distance. Il suffit que chacun possède un GSM et que le payeur ait un compte Tunz.com approvisionné. On pense immédiatement à la possibilité de partager une addition au restaurant, d’acheter des biens sur Internet ou de faire des micro-paiements pour du contenu sur un site, pas mal mais cela n’est pas ce qui va changer le monde…

Pourtant Tunz.com est une monnaie électronique différente : Tunz.com permet des transactions directes entre individus, instantanées, à distance, sans terminaux dédiés. Et des transactions dématérialisées permettent pleins de nouvelles applications, … révolutionnaires.

Par exemple Tunz.com permettrait d’acheter un objet virtuel a un joueur dans Word of Warcraft, dans Second life, ou de payer pour voir une vidéo dans PS3 Home. Sur n’importe quel système de chat/Webcam comme MSN Messenger, Skype, AIM/iChat, deux personnes peuvent s’échanger un paiement via leur GSM en échange d’un fichier, d’un service ou d’une information… même par email entre un acheteur et un vendeur sur un site d’enchère en ligne!

Dans la réalité (hors Internet) si un marchand affiche un code pour un produit dans un magazine, sur une affiche ou un écran, un membre de Tunz.com pourrait acheter ce produit n’importe ou. Dans son lit mais aussi dans la rue, a un concert, a un spectacle, a une convention, dans un métro… Imaginez d’acheter le MP3 d’un concert pendant que vous y assistez. Imaginez d’acheter la vidéo de la conférence que vous êtes en train de voir, ou un livre que l’auteur vous présente a un salon. Imaginez aussi simplement acheter un produit simplement en envoyant un payement avec le code nécessaire que vous voyez dans un publicité a la télévision, sur une affiche dans la rue ou entendez à la radio (si vous n’êtes pas au volant).

Au premier regard Tunz.com parait sympathique : c’est un porte-monnaie électronique mobile… Mais en y réfléchissant bien, son utilisation sans terminaux spécifiques, avec de simple GSM permet d’innombrables applications qui vont créer de nouvelles opportunités de commerce, permettre des transaction n’importe où, et a distance entre acheteur et vendeur. Telles les cartes de crédit ont rendu possible le commerce électronique sur le web, peut-être que Tunz.com changera radicalement notre économie. Et le monde ?

Read more | Comments (2) | May 17th, 2007

TUNZ.COM : Payez avec votre GSM !

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

Tunz.com a mis en ligne sa plateforme de paiement de personnes aÌ€ personnes par GSM. Les paiements se font par l’envoi d’un simple SMS ou par le Web et prennent en moyenne 8 secondes. Les transactions sont gratuites par le Web. Par SMS 40 cents permettent de financer les notifications de paiement par SMS. Pour ouvrir un compte il suffit de recevoir un paiement par SMS d’un membre de Tunz.com ou de s’enregistrer sur le site et de faire un virement bancaire pour charger son compte.

Tunz.com lance aussi une première mondiale : TunzMe, un système de paiement par le Web idéal pour les bloggeurs qui leur permet de collecter des donations. Tunz.com prélève pour ce service 10 cents par opération (quel que soit le montant) et s’engage à reverser la moitié de cette commission à différentes ONG.

Enfin Tunz.com propose une série de solutions pour les marchands en ligne et commerçants. Les marchands affiliés auprès du payment provider leader en Belgique, Ogone, peuvent, ajouter un bouton de paiement Tunz sur leur
site d’un simple clic.

Une série de marchands viendront s’ajouter petit aÌ€ petit aÌ€ la plateforme Tunz.com. Dans une premieÌ€re phase, Tunz.com se concentre sur l’intégration de marchands proposant des services et produits de commodité du type parking, pompes aÌ€ essence, restaurants, transports en commun, vending machines, cinémas, événements, spectacles,…

(Full disclosure : Je suis l’un des fondateurs de Tunz.com).

Read more | Comments (0) | May 16th, 2007

Why and how Joost will change the World!

Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas, Report, Thoughts

Joostâ„¢

I will not explain what is Joost, just google the web, visit the Joost website and blog.

But I’ll explain why, after only two weeks of Joost experience, I’m convinced that Joost will change the world.

Why ?

Because Joost will revolution television first, then slowly the audience habbits (personalized individual tv consumption), then the whole mass media segmentation system, then shift the power from the media moghuls that rules using their monopoly on frequencies, on satellite, cable, DSL channels to content creators.

Because Joost will change the business model of television, then destroy the advertising media agencies monopoly and their exclusive relation with advertisers, then turn whole advertising business sector (from ATL to Interactive) upside down – literally.

Because Joost will destroy the ambitions of most web video sharing websites (YouTube, Google Video, Daily Motion, and the numerous others) by cutting the bandwidth from the whole equation (thanks to peercasting) and adding advertising revenues (from day one) maybe subscriptions revenues and maybe pay-per-view revenues while respecting the whole rights system since day 1 (including territories distinction).

How is it possible ?

Joost can be viewed from any screen as long as you have broadband internet access and a Windows PC or a Mac. Watch it on a laptop over Wifi. Watch it on your desktop PC monitor or on a television (CRT, LCD, Plasma). No need for setop boxes, smart cards, satelite dishes. Watch it in your hotel room. Start watching a movie in the office, finish it in the living room. This is freedom of space! And freedom is a good reason to change your habbits.

Joost replicate the old plain TV experience (full screen) with a program (a playlist of shows). Don’t search snippets of video on the web, just trust a brand (channel), sit down, relax and watch. You just have access to a potentially infinite number of channels. You’ll never need to record a program again. Don’t invest in storage, recorders, tapes and EPG subscriptions. With Joost, you can navigate the channel playlist forward and skip a boring show or backward, to view an old show. This is freedom of time! And freedom is a good reason to change your habbits.

Joost has advertisement since day one. Both as sponsor of a channel (you watch an ad at the beginning of you program) or in the middle of your program (and to the contrary of television, you can’t zap). And you’ll watch those ads, as Joost will personalized them just for you. Joost know your name, your email, your email domain name, your location, your computer model and OS, your IP adress, your channel selection, your RSS feeds selection, so Joost know your profile. Joost will provide advertisers the GRAAAAL they have been searching forever : the emotional impact of television with the one-to-one personalisation possible with interactive media… And I bet Joost will provide advertiser a platform to buy ad space like you buy ad words in Google Ad sense program. Good bye media agencies…

Just like with Skype-out, soon Joost will ask your credit card number to allow you to subscribe to channels (great for porn), and buy pay-per-view movies. Even better a mobile payment system for teenagers like Tunz.com ;-) Then thanks to Joost integration of mozilla’ html rendering engine wich allow each channel to display an overlay with a mini website, you’ll be able to buy products from Joost in one click! Watch an TV ad, click. Done. Ho boy. That will be BIG.

In the near future bandwidth cost will drop and volume limits disappear. Even today in some market (eg: voo.be in belgium) broadband subscriptions have no volume limits, there Joost could also move from SD to HD in a codec snap and kill blue ray and HD DVD before birth.

Joost has the potential to change the media business, the advertising business, the e-commerce business, the interactive business. Soon the whole world.

Next episode : what are Joost’ threats.

Note : Like many others I thought I invented the peercasting in 1999 (see annex below). I remember an Apple Expo in Paris during which I had diner with my friend Martin and draw a QuickTime distributed streaming system on the napkin. By chance Frank Casanova, from Apple QuickTime team was in the restaurant, so I took my chance and gave him my little napkin drawing with an explanation. He gave me his email adress and asked me to send him my idea in writing. I never did. Ten years later Apple has AppleTV, FrontRow, iTunes, iPod, iPhone with Wifi, QuickTime Streaming Server and still no peercasting. So next time an idiot give you a napkin drawing, take him seriously.

Annex I : Other PeerCasting technologies :

  • http://www.peercast.org/
  • http://www.freecast.org/
  • http://p2p-radio.sourceforge.net/
  • http://www.streamerp2p.com/
  • http://www.sopcast.com/
  • http://www.peerstream.net/
  • http://tribler.org/
  • http://www.rawflow.com/
  • http://www.octoshape.com/
  • http://www.abacast.com/
  • http://www.flatcast.com/de/startseite.aspx
  • http://mediablog.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/MediaBlog
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPStream
  • http://www.pplive.com/en/index.html
  • http://actlab.tv/
  • Read more | Comments (1) | March 14th, 2007

    PS3 Home : Fix Online Fundamentals Before Going Home

    Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

    But PlayStation Home will certainly have its applications. I look forward to getting invited to the private spaces of other users so they can show me their vast collection of ripped DVD porn films and mind-blowing animated GIFs. I also look forward to going to the Sponsored By Big Summer Movie Area, where I can watch the trailer for Big Summer Movie and perhaps even acquire a T-shirt with the logo for Big Summer Movie right on it!

    Worlds like Second Life and There exist on the fringe and, if I may recklessly dismiss and generalize something that I deliberately choose not to understand, are only used by lunatics and shut-ins. Is that because not enough people have been exposed to these sorts of virtual worlds? Or is it because most people simply aren’t interested in some creepy emote-based chat room where 30 guys are doing the robot while trying to hit on the one female avatar in the area and 30 more guys are trying to tell you that you aren’t cool if you don’t go buy some more virtual bucket hats and headphones for your already-far-too-metrosexual-looking avatars? As long as the PlayStation 3 keeps selling, PS Home is going to be the big mainstream experiment that finally gives us the answer.

    Source : The Tipping Point: 10 Things to Make the PlayStation 3 Worth Buying – Features at GameSpot

    Read more | Comments (0) | March 13th, 2007

    LBW (MMRVU)

    Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

    Novembre 2008, RockStar Studios sort Litle Big World, son premier MMRVU (Massively MultiCitizen Recreational Virtual Universe) basé sur le moteur et l’univers du très discret Canis Canem Edit sorti en 2006. 2nd Life, en population déjà stagnante depuis décembre 2007, croûlant abusivement sous les opérations commerciales (on recensera jusqu’à une action en cours pour 10 habitants fin 2007) et le légions organisées de squatteurs de locaux commerciaux à l’abandon, voit ses habitants le fuir pour peupler LBW, pourtant mensuellement payant. Support et vecteur de cette mutation, Litle Big Odyssey, jeu multi-consoles After-Next-Gen, propose une aventure solo et multi-joueurs hors du commun, lors de laquelle le personnage construit son apparence et son expérience. Aventure à l’issue de laquelle il accède au rang de citoyen de LBW. Etendre LBW en LBW script est libre et gratuit. La majeure partie du commerce effectué dans LBW se fait en 2D, dans un navigateur web. Les opés marketing et la représentation commerciale 3D, à l’origine de la perte d’intéret de 2nd Life, sont la portion congrue dans LBW. Fin 2009, le site Monster.com recence le terme “LBW Script” dans une annonce d’offre d’emploi sur six à destination des développeurs. A la même date, réunis en conseil d’administration, les Majors à l’origine de la RIAA valident le business-model de consommation de la musique initié par LBW en partenariat avec Pandora.com (basé sur une série de canaux radio ultra-thématiques illimités et prépayés dans labo à LBW) et engagent la dissolution de l’association. Début 2010, à la tribune du grand raout des nouvelles technologies à Bejin, Fredéric Cavazza prononcera, en chinois, le fameux discours fondateur qui le rendra célèbre : “Cinq solutions pour remettre le gulf-stream en marche à l’aide de Javascript”.

    vincent b. (Source)

    Read more | Comments (0) | March 7th, 2007

    Songbird RC1

    Posted by Brice Le Blevennec | Filed under Ideas

    Enfin du nouveau dans le monde des logiciels de lecture et de gestion de votre musique : Songbird, intéressant projet Open Source qui exploite le moteur de rendu HTML de la fondation Mozilla (Gecko), est une alternative a iTunes assez originale. Avec SongBird vous surfez le web et pouvez jouer tout fichier audio (MP3 et autre) ou video (MOV, MV4, …) qui se trouvent liés dans le code HTML d’une page web. S’ils vous plaisent, vous pouvez les télécharger dans votre librairie. Vous pouvez aussi vous abonner à un blog, ou un podcast et recevoir automatiquement les nouveaux morceaux dès leur publication… Enfin une série de moteurs de recherche dédié à la musique vous permettent de trouver rapidement d’autres morceaux lorsqu’un artiste vous plaît. La version Almost 0.2 “Test Flight” est téléchargeable pour Windows, Mac OS X et Linux. Encore un peu instable mais prometteur.

    Read more | Comments (0) | October 1st, 2006

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