Full Transcript:

Benjamin Higginbotham: Benjamin Higginbotham and Jeremy Elfering from technologyevangelist.com. It is Tuesday – gadget day and we are here talking about the Sony reader as well as the Apple TV, interesting device, we are actually just shooting a segment on the Apple TV. How do you think that went, Jeremy?

Jeremy Elfering: Well, beside it was very well, the Apple TV is actually very interesting product, its just a … it’s got it’s little qwerks so far.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, describe to us what the Apple TV is?

Jeremy Elfering: Well, the Apple TV is just an extender for your iTunes library. So, any videos or audio that you can play in iTunes, you can play with your Apple TV and that’s really what it is designed to do. It is designed to be a media center for your TV that just extends your iTunes library to your TV.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, what if I wanted to watch a live television or if I want to do something that wasn’t in my iTunes library? What will the Apple TV do for me?

Jeremy Elfering: Nothing.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely nothing?

Jeremy Elfering: Absolutely nothing.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, do you think that something they are going to update in the future from firmware or where do you think they are going to go with the Apple TV?

Jeremy Elfering: I think for right now, it is probably going to stay the way it is, its there is different devices out there for live TV and it is not, there may be possibilities down the line for streaming technologies to be included in iTunes, but right now just not, they are yet for live broadcast.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, actually that’s an interesting application, one of there to combine something like Neokast with the MoveDigital backend right on the Apple TV, right? That would be very powerful, because now you have got live TV over the Internet in high definition quality that’s using peer-to-peer swarm to get the bandwidth and you have got the on-demand stuff that you have got in your iTunes library, you got the best of all worlds.

Jeremy Elfering: That would be a very interesting application, it is just a matter of whether Apple feels that’s the right road? It is so far from what I have seen Apple seems to think that download and play is the way to go, but they may change that philosophy down the road.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s interesting. I really hope that they do, because we have got lot of competing products from say Netgear with their digital entertainer 8000 I think it is actually gave the model number, I don’t know what number, that is not top my head and we shot that at CES and put that in Show Notes and that does up to 1080p, that’s another interesting limitation in the Apple TV.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes, it is.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It does only 720p.

Jeremy Elfering: It is an interesting limitation and I am sure that what they are trying to do is trying to make sure that the bandwidth they are using in your wireless network isn’t over whelmed with the 1080p files, but it is…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, but they really push 802.11N for that.

Jeremy Elfering: I agree.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, the bandwidth you would think that even after you take off overhead and everything, you could still shoot 1080p video to the device.

Jeremy Elfering: I agree, but how many people do have 802.11N in their homes right now?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Or even so there is a 5 megabit cap, you can’t do 720p content over 5 megabits.

Jeremy Elfering: That’s true, but it may be a limitation, so they make sure that people have a good experience now and then they expand it later.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I certainly hope so.

Jeremy Elfering: I agree, it is…

Benjamin Higginbotham: I mean, we believe that 1080p is where we need to be and that’s where the content is going in us, and honestly a little bit surprise that they didn’t include 1080p, especially with all these 1080p sets coming out.

Jeremy Elfering: That was the one we said when they first announced that was their biggest complaint was that it did not have 1080p support. I think it will have 1080p support down the road, but I am sure that they want to make sure that the first initial impressions were good enough that people would go “oh!” and recommend it to friends.

Benjamin Higginbotham: The next item on our docket is the Sony reader and I bring this one up because Robert Scoble as an April Fools’ joke talked about, I don’t know if you read this, he talked about Apple coming out with the reader that had Cingular wireless built into it for $599

Jeremy Elfering: I haven’t see that at all, actually I have to take a look at it...

Benjamin Higginbotham: It is hilarious, I read that and actually he had me until the very last line and I will tell you what that was in a moment, but the idea was, it was basically a Sony reader with an innovative interface little bit better than what the Sony reader does, that allows you to download your books from directly from Amazon without any computer, direct over the air as long as you got a Cingular connection, it allows you to download your blog using a modified version of Google readers. You can read your blogs right on the device, how cool would that be?

Jeremy Elfering: Very cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right over the WiFi or the Cingular network WiFi, it would, if you didn’t want to get them more expensive version that had Cingular built into, you could actually link it to your iPhone and use the bandwidth on the iPhone. So, if you already had an iPhone , you would have your e-reader with you as well and you could just link the two and then you could get your bandwidth that way.

Jeremy Elfering: Interesting.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And where he lost me, where I finally realized that it was an April Fools’ Joke, which was the day before April Fools’ by the way, at least in the US was when he said and he was reading Steve Jobs, he wants to read Steve Jobs blog and then I said, “oh, no way, there is no way, absolutely not”, so that brought me to my Sony reader, which I usually like quite a bit.

Jeremy Elfering: I have played with your Sony reader and I like it a lot too, my biggest complaint on it is being availability of books.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, actually you read substantially more than I do.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Like a lot, well I guess it depends on what we read. I read a lot of information online.

Jeremy Elfering: Right.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Like, constantly in front of my computer, but there is lot of eye strain that goes with that, the backlight is just tedious and it is just not the same as reading a book.

Jeremy Elfering: No, it is not.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And that’s why I bought the Sony reader and it really is an amazing device, I like it quite a bit, but it is pretty expensive.

Jeremy Elfering: It is expensive, but for person like me who goes on vacation and takes four or five books at least, that’s a huge space savings.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, then why don’t you own one? Why is it that the non-reader in the group owns’ a Sony reader and the reader in the group doesn’t?

Jeremy Elfering: Because, I can’t find the books I want on online.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right, so out of 10 books that you may want, how many could you find online to purchase with the Sony reader?

Jeremy Elfering: If I am lucky, one.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Really?

Jeremy Elfering: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, it will play, it doesn’t really play I suppose, but it will read PDF’s that are non-encrypted as well?

Jeremy Elfering: Correct, but there is still the matter of finding those books that you want. It is you will find, you are starting to trickle up and you are starting to get, to see more and more books as they come out, but it is still a very new technology that people who have are starting to sort of embrace.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, do we have a chicken /egg scenario here, because they are not going to really make these books available for the Sony reader unless they have a high volume of Sony readers in the market place and they can’t get a high volume with Sony readers in the market place, there are all the books that you want to read there, the same issue that you have got?

Jeremy Elfering: I agree, but the one thing that does help them is it doesn’t cost that much to the publishing companies to do a PDF version of it. It is relatively free.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yes, but a non-DRM’ed PDF version of it.

Jeremy Elfering: That is the trick.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, you can do things like, disable "save" or "no print", it will actually still read those books, but as soon as you have to enter a password or a key code to open that PDF, it will not display in the Sony reader.

Jeremy Elfering: And I think publishers will embrace non-DRM faster than the music industry will.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Now, that’s an interesting point. EMI has just announced with Apple that they are going to remove DRM and increase the quality of the audio files. So, they are actually making it easier to steal this content, they are making it really high quality, but I don’t think people will.

Jeremy Elfering: I don’t think they will either.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I think that people want an easy way to get their content move it to all their own devices, you know what? Someone will always steal it, there is nothing that they can do it to prevent that.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: DRM does not solve that problem, but I think what this will do is help them increase their market share presence online, which is the only place that this is going, do you own a CD player?

Jeremy Elfering: I think I still do own a CD player.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Is it hooked up to any thing?

Jeremy Elfering: No.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Is that a portable CD player or like a...?

Jeremy Elfering: I think I still have a Set-Top CD player somewhere.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Not hooked up to anything. So, if you have a Set-Top CD player hooked up to nothing, are you going to go to the store and buy a CD?

Jeremy Elfering: No.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, the same thing is going to happen with movies and I think the same thing is going to happen with books, which is why I really like my e-reader.

Jeremy Elfering: I agree.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And I think it’s just a fantastic device it is really easy to read, the print quality is amazing in anytime someone touches, if they like, this thing is awesome, but it is too expensive and there are no books for it.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, the major two complaints.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I am sick of paper.

Jeremy Elfering: It has its place.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No, it doesn’t.

Jeremy Elfering: In some cases it does, its there are still something that be said about a tactile feel reading a book, but I think for most people don’t need that anymore.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But I think, every book, when I am reading a book that binding of every book is different, the thickness of every book is different in finding that comfortable sweet spot for actually been able to read the book is different for every single book.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I might going to be on my left side, right side, sitting up, how is it going to bend in the middle? How is it going to impact the quality of the book? With the Sony reader or any e-paper, once you learn how that device feels in your hand, every book will read exactly as you. You can actually start within through stuff, much faster than you could, as these little things that, I don’t think a lot of people actually think off. You can actually start getting through a lot more material, because you always can sit in the same position or at least you can have you, you don’t want to do that for too long, you get sore, but at least you have your three positions that you can rotate, between much easier than having the books that change.

Jeremy Elfering: I have one spot that will not work.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Where?

Jeremy Elfering: I actually tend to read while sitting in an inner tube on lake. I will not take my e-reader that place.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I dare you, I think you should, I bet it would do OK.

Jeremy Elfering: We will see.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How wet do you get? I mean how wet does the book get? Because, paper doesn’t do so well in water either.

Jeremy Elfering: Right, but then they are about 5 bucks.

Benjamin Higginbotham: OK, through that all right fair enough, I will buy that.

Jeremy Elfering: And I have gone out five bucks.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, when will you buy a Sony reader?

Jeremy Elfering: I will buy a Sony reader, if I am able to buy five books that I want online, I will buy a Sony reader that day.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Really?

Jeremy Elfering: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: OK. Let me ask you this, which would you buy first, an Apple TV or Sony reader?

Jeremy Elfering: I already know the answer to that, because its going to be an Apple TV, because my wife already gave me a permission of the Apple TV.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, you have to have permission to buy an Apple TV, because you need to get the high definition television to go with it as well.

Jeremy Elfering: She doesn’t quite know about that add on yet.

Benjamin Higginbotham: She will be finding out soon, won’t she?

Jeremy Elfering: She will be, as she does listen to these.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Sorry Jill, it only works with the high definition monitor as you will see in the video we are about to release. All right, well tomorrow is Web 2.0, hopefully Ed will be back for that particular show, because that is his particular sweet spot. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jeremy Elfering: A pleasure.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I hope everyone on Talkshoe had an great time and will join us again tomorrow at 12 central time that is 1 eastern or 10 o’clock Pacific and we will talk with you soon.