The other day I was listening to a podcast called This Week in Media.  One of the reoccurring themes of this media podcast is the conversation about the future of TV.  When my family got a VCR I was amazed by the ability to set it up to record a show that I wasn’t around to watch.  I could then watch it at my leisure and even fast forward through the commercials.  This process is now called time shifting.  The TV show is available on MY schedule, and the idea of rushing home to see a show is not quite as relevant as it once was.

Well, now things have gone digital.  If you miss a show, there’s a good chance that it’s available for you to watch on the Internet.  It seems like all the major networks have an online video service and with the AppleTV and Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, you can now connect your TV to the internet through these consoles.  Now with everybody wanting to have an internet presence for their TV shows, it seems like things are getting a bit muddled.  It’s always been so easy to just sit in front of the TV and surf the channels, but how do you surf through the World Wide Web to find a show to watch?  You go to YouTube.

YouTube seemed to just be a dumping ground for user created video.  Now they’re supporting HD content AND they have a section for SHOWS and MOVIES.  You can watch all seven seasons of MacGuyver or the first season of The Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon.  How about the 1968 film Inspector Clouseau staring Alan Arkin in place of Peter Sellers.  Or how about the 1967 film Casio Royale starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and a chimpanzee as James Bond.

All this time I thought that the built in inclusion of YouTube on the iPhone and Playstation3 and other media devices was just a waste of time.  Now I see that it is all so that we can watch TV where ever and whenever we want to.

Sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song. Music, and especially jazz, has always been referential, taking a pieces of other performers songs and placing them in new ones. This method of mixing up melodies and sampling was always done through the person playing the instrument. With modern digital technology came a new way to sample.

DJ’s would be live mixing songs in clubs and then making their own CDs from the “NEW” music that they’ve created. This musical art form is AMAZING. My friend Bret posted a link in FaceBook to ThruYou. This website is made to look like a hack or possibly a “Sampling” and re-mixing of YouTube. The artist and creator of the site is Ophir Kutiel. He goes by the name Kutiman and is a solo act from Tel Aviv, Israel. He’s schooled in the funk and fusion of the 1970s, Afrorock and Afrobeat, heavy psych from the 60s, hip-hop and modern R&B, a bit of reggae and dub, a couple decades of electronic music, and the general art of the groove.

He has taken bits and pieces from YouTube and sampled them into brand new songs. If you go to his YouTube channel you can see all of the source videos that he’s used to create his “New” songs.

here’s Kutiman explaining the process

download the mp3s of the YouTube samples here or check out his album

I don’t watch broadcast tv anymore, but I do enjoy their programing.  I hear about new shows or old shows from friends and then I download and watch them.  I don’t pay complete attention to when the shows are actually broadcasting because I never watch them live anymore.  So, I would turn to TV.com to check when new episodes are out and get some information about the shows.  Well, TV.com is changing.  The site is a part of the CBS Interactive Entertainment and it looks like they’re getting ready to go up against Hulu offering commercial supported streaming video of TV shows and movies on the internet.The thing that I think is most interesting about this is that CBS pushed out a streaming video player for iPhones of all the content available on TV.com, including for the first time impressive full-length episodes of

some—but not most—shows.  Cool stuff.  I found the article at Gizmodo.

Google is just making more and more cool stuff.

Chris Dimino was given the following challenge.  Take this now useless item and give it a new life than it was intended to have.  The solution is presented in his typewriter series of sculptures.

My personal favorite is the “Corona-Matic”.  A typewriter turned into a waffle iron that makes keyboard shaped waffles.  I came across this image on Treehugger.  Click on the picture to go to his site and see more of his work.

The new Canon 5D Mark II is a pretty awesome camera.  It retails for $2700.00, which is quite a lot of money for a camera, but the results a remarkable.  I’m not a big photography buff, so it’s actually not the still image capabilities that caught my attention.  These new cameras are capturing High Definition images AND can capture video.  The full frame, 21.1 Megapixel EOS 5D Mark II is the first EOS with full High Definition video capability.  Click here for more info, or just watch some of the videos below.

I haven’t fully researched these but it looks like there are two great sample videos from this camera. The first video was done by a professional with tons of extra equipment and the second video was done by a news photographer and a laptop.  Here is a link to the super professional one, and I’ve posted the other video below. 

When I was in Japan (15 years ago) I was surprised by the different types of vending machines they had.  You could buy food, beer, batteries, and even underwear.  Well it seems that our insatiable appetite for media has demanded the creation of a Media Vending machine.

According to the Dow Jones Report, Walmart will start selling the new T-mobile G1 today.  I have been a T-mobile customer for the past 2 years and have some credit to spend on a new phone and have been considering getting this Android phone.  As a reward for being such a great customer and honoring my contract with T-mobile, I’ll be able to buy the phone for the discounted price of $179.99.  That discount price from T-moblie is actually $31.11 MORE than if I just walked off the street and into a Wal-Mart to buy it there.  THANKS!!

Love it or hate it, the new T-moblie G1 phone is here.  This phone is supposed to be the iPhone killer.  T-mobile is claiming that they have pre-sold 1.5 million phone making it’s debut larger than the iPhones, but some people claim those numbers  to be inflated.  I personally like the idea of the phone and would gladly accept a free phone for review.  Until that happens, you can go over to Gizmodo and read their review. 

Flash 9 support for the PS3’s web browser is now available in the latest update.  I’ll be testing this as soon as it’s done dowloading, but this means that HULU and other online video sites will now be available.  Goodbye cable, hello internet TV!