The September issue of MacTech is now available, and it contains my article “A MacMini Robot: Building A Vision Capable Robot Using A Mac Mini”, detailing the exploits of our mad-dashed, 48-hour code-fest to program, test, debug, and run a vision-controlled autonomous macmini powered robot at the AD-HOC/MacHack programming conference.

You can get some info here, or see Perfectly Scientific’s robotics page. I am working on putting up a wiki site for project details and development, and George Storm is putting up an online group repository together as well, so watch out!

Of course, MacTech can be a little on the pricey side for non-programmers (well, same $$ price, but maybe less $$/value ratio), but is a good read for any and all Apple programmers.

Every week newspapers and websites report that another city, country, or state has begun embracing open-source technologies in order to cut down on costs. The city of Los Angeles, California recently announced they would be moving to open-source applications in order to use the saved money to put more police officers on the street. Many small governments have chosen open-source applications to enhance their operations at a fraction of the cost of proprietary software.

However, what is often overlooked is the fact that while open-source is free to use, it was not free to develop. Each line of code took some person’s time, ability, and money (utilities, computer, education) to write. Furthermore, support via bulletin boards, email, and websites requires a human being to read, understand, and respond. This again is free to recieve but was not free to give.

Many open-source developers, including myself, develope and support such applications for the personal joy and fullfillment (technical, communal, or otherwise) such work offers. There is, however, a cost to me for spending this time developing software. Depending on the license and terms, this software can even be incorporated into commercial applications. Other people will be making money on the work of open-source developers. And, at the least, the work will benefit citizens of many communities and nations.

For these reasons, I believe open-source development should be supported by the governments of these citizens and communities. Most nations have public institutions such as libraries, beaurocratic offices, justice systems, and transportation departments, all of which receive monetary and other support by the government for providing such services. Furthermore, incentive is often offered for volunteers of charitable organizations, fire departments, police stations, and community groups. There are already initiatives in progress to provide such support. Oregon is creating an Open Technology Center.

By supporting or incentivizing open-source development, governments would encourage more people to contribute and help out with work that will benefit the government both directly, and indirectly by helping other businesses and citizens. Furthermore, companies could also be offered incentives for open-sourcing and distributing applications back to the community. When companies do community service, sometimes it’s good for employees to help weed the local park, but other times it may be more beneficial to the community to provide that crucial security patch to the world’s most used, open-source, web-server.

Example benefits could include tax deductions similar to those given when citizens donate to a charitable organization. Others may include prefential pricing on hardware and software similar to that offered by government offices and military families.

There are many issues with governments supporting open-source applications. The first and foremost would be how to regulate who is eligible for receiving these benefits. Simple metrics like “lines of code written” or “emails sent” would not be useful or accurate. Perhaps the incentive would be pro-rated against some ranking of the developer within projects. There may need to be a larger organization that would maintain and distribute a developer’s/supporter’s contribution to viable open-source projects.

Open-source projects have provided immeasurable assistance and usefulness to citizens of all nations around the globe. Many members of these projects work hard to support the users and groups either for personal reasons, or because it is their paid-position. However, as more and more governments reap the benefits of open-source and free projects, they gain responsibility for supporting and encouraging these projects are started, continue to grow and to offer support to the citizens of their community.

I have been happily using MythTV for over a year now to record TV shows, movies, and pause live TV. In truth, I probably watch less TV now, both in shows as well as by cutting out commercials, than I did before MythTV. However, the ability to pick and choose what I want to watch when I want to watch it has been completely lifestyle changing. By not rushing to the TV to catch a show I want to watch I end up doing other projects and reading when I feel like it and only watching TV when I really feel the need to “veg out”.

However, running MythTV hasn’t been without its troubles. I have dealt with various upgrade problems, full hard drive, strange crashes and even a mis-configured password file that allowed some ‘nasty type’ to replace my Good Eats with Sesame Street. While I have nothing against Sesame Street, and did enjoy it back in the day, I do miss the Good Eats I had queued up to watch.

These bugs, as well as a failure to schedule, or even scheduling conflicts between multiple shows, has caused me to miss recordings I would have liked to make. Therefore, I become greatly interested in the How-To written Phil Torrone on Broadcatching.

Broadcatching is, essentially, sharing recorded video over the internet. However, the mechanism has been greatly polished up to use RSS feeds and an automated BitTorrent program to allow users to create search lists and continually grab videos/shows they are interested in. There is a veritable plethora of people, hobbyists, out there that take great pride in creating and making available television shows and movies of high-quality for sharing over the internet. The result is that nearly any show and movie, within hours of being shown on television (or pre-release, in some cinema movies case), is available online via this mechanism.

I am not sure of the legality of sharing these files, but I see a fine and hazy difference between recording these shows on my own hardware/software setup and downloading these shows via someone else’s hardware setup. Am I cheating my local cable company by not watching *their* feed? I don’t feel bad about it and would make a strong case that it shouldn’t be illegal even if it is.

In the end, this sharing is happening, and based on how effective the MPAA, RIAA, and other entities have been in fighting this sharing, I doubt it will go away anytime soon. Therefore, I believe the video industry has an excellent chance to embrace these technologies to broaden their market reach and customer interest.

What I imagine is this: Television shows are distributed by the media industry at the same time it is aired on broadcast or cable/satellite television. It would even a good idea to distribute shows that a provider doesn’t want to spend airtime on, or wants to broaden the viewing scope outside of the normal show time.

The released videos aren’t just the basic recording of the television show however. An obvious problem with hobbyists distributing shows is that they have probably removed the commercial content. Furthermore, given the choice, a customer would probably choose a commercial-free recording over a still commercial filled recording. Therefore, the original media distributor would release ‘enhanced recordings’.

An ‘enhanced recording’ would contain additional information about the show, links to products shown in the video, actor/direction biographical information, links to similar programs, and educational content (e.g. “Click here to learn more about DNA fingerprinting.”) Amazon.com already does a similar technique with their “Amazon films”. These films are short films which contain various, subtle, product placements. While watching the short film, viewers are presented with links to purchase the cellphones, mp3 players, cars, or clothing shown in the video.

The idea of the ‘enhanced recording’ is to provide added interest to the customer for downloading and viewing these ‘official’ distributed copies over the hobbyist released versions. Furthermore, watching television moves from a purely receptive medium to an interactive one. Viewers can still choose to just sit back and watch their show, or they can learn more about the show, its contents, and similar shows produced by the media company.

More and more Personal Media Players (PMP) are being released on the market. These media players allow users to view video and audio anywhere they want. The enhanced video would could include basic additional content for these users to download and view while on the go, or the user could bookmark a portion of the video or link to later view and download.

The current means of television and movie watching stop interacting with the consumer when the credits begin to roll. Advertisers and the media producers have to make their pitch and money within the timeslot of the show. By including links and information with the video itself, consumers are still engaged in the show and more interested and willing. DVD editions of television shows and movies do a similar thing. I often find myself digging around a DVD immediatly after watching the show since my mind is still engaged and interested in the show. I want to know more now. How often have you popped a DVD into you player just to read the actor bios or other movie previews?

Again, television show distribution is another battle in which current media conglomerates are skeptical to embrace and lead the future. However, there are options for them to create truly great content, available to users how they want to receive, and still make boat-loads of money in the end.