Day: August 2, 2001

Jeff Kirvin’s Follow-up Dissection of Gemstar’s Implosion

Last Fall, there was a lot of confusion over exactly what Gemstar was planning to do with the Rocket e-book hardware that it acquired from NuvoMedia. At that time, Gemstar was still claiming it would keep the Rocket e-book relatively open, but in an article about the Rocket e-book Jeff Kirvin indicated that Gemstar was heading toward a more closed model where all content for the Rocket e-book would have to come from Gemstar servers. I wrote that a closed model would be suicide.

Now Kirvin has written an excellent follow-up article dissecting the numerous mistakes made by Gemstar which have pretty much taken the Rocket e-book out of contention as a serious product these days. Not only did they go to a business model where all the content had to come from their serves, but Gemstar also a) never even tried to offer anything but the latest bestsellers at hardcover prices and b) systematically did everything possible to kill the independent user communities that Nuvo Media (who originally created and marketed the Rocket e-book) had tried to build.

At this point, I’m skeptical that there will ever be a market for standalone e-book readers after Gemstar’s failure. Kirvin mentions the Franklin eBookMan as an inexpensive alternative to the Rocket e-book. Although the Franklin does seem to understand that it needs to encourage independent content creators, the device has received almost universally negative reviews except from the diehard e-book fans. Personally, I’m more likely to buy something like an IPaq and use that for e-books rather than buy a separate device — the quick growth in features of PDAs is really rendering dedicated e-book readers pointless.

More on Olive Garden H2NO Program

Memepool managed to dig up a Google cache link to the other page of the Coca Cola marketing site that featured the H2NO program. This is hilarious stuff explaining the various problem associated with drinking water.

Water. It’s necessary to sustain life, but to many Casual Dining restaurant chains it contributes to a dull dining experience for the customer. Many customers choose tap water not because they enjoy it, but because it is what they always have drunk in the past. In response, some restaurant chains are implementing programs to help train crews to sell alternative choices to tap water, like soft drinks and non-carbonated beverages, with the goal of increasing overall guest satisfaction. Because of its own successful campaign against water, The Olive Garden® has recently sent a powerful message to the entire restaurant industry – less water and more beverage choices mean happier customers.

Olive Garden restaurants, like many other Casual Dining locations, were facing a high water incidence rate. They wanted their restaurant crews to emphasize the broad array of alternative beverage selections available, with the hope of reducing tap water incidence.

You have to love lines like “its own successful campaign against water.”

Sony’s CD Hypocrisy

New Scientist reports that Sony has been developing a copy protection scheme for CDs called Cactus. The scary thing about Cactus is that a pirated CD could end up wiping out your expensive speakers.

What I don’t understand, though, is why Sony continues to sell consumer-level CD recorders if it doesn’t want people copying CDs. Their promo material for their RCD-W1 dual-deck system even brags that it has “4X high speed dubbing.”

Elliot Katz Upbraids Activists Over Language

Elliot Katz was apparently chagrined at the way activists on an animal rights mailing list were talk about issues related to pets and recently posted a short message asking them to clean up their act,

Hi, Would it be possible to ask the people and organizations posting on AR
News to put the word owner in quotation marks if they feel it necessary to
use it. thanks

Source:

AR-NEWS digest 1773. Elliot Katz, E-mail communication, July 25, 2001.

UK Background Paper on HLS Controversy and Animal Experimentation

Americans for Medical Progress recently posted a link to an excellent background paper on the Huntingdon Life Sciences controversy. The paper was prepared by UK researchers for Members of Parliament and is available on the House of Commons Library web site. Just follow the link to download a PDF version of the 48-page report, Animal Experiments.