Apple TV to get DVR features via Miglia?

Eddie Hargreaves (The Apple Blog) witnessed something interesting at MacWorld:

While I was at Miglia’s booth checking out their products and talking to their representatives, I saw a Miglia executive approached by a lady who identified herself as being with Apple. She said she was there to introduce him to someone else at Apple who was her European counterpart. Sure enough, another gentleman made his way through the exhibit hall crowd and they all left the booth to go have a meeting together.

This encounter, along with the removal of all Miglia products from the online Apple store, is what leads Eddie Hargreaves to infer that Apple may be working with Miglia (pronounced “Mee-Lee-Ah”) to bring HD DVR capabilities to the Apple TV. This could just be a wild guess by The Apple Blog but I’m confident that Apple will add DVR capabilties to the Apple TV sometime within the next year. More specifically, I believe Apple will add HD content to iTunes by June/July 2007 then add DVR to the Apple TV sometime within the next year.

Apple wants their products to be the hub of your digital life and the Apple TV with DVR capabilities is a big part of that vision.

Upgrading to NewsBreak 2.0? Backup your RSS channels

I just upgraded to NewsBreak 2.0 and everything went smoothly. However, backup your list of RSS channels before upgrading. Even though Ilium Software calls it an “upgrade,” it’s more like a reinstall because none of my settings were preserved and, at first, all of my RSS channels were gone. Here’s how I got them back:

1. After the “upgrade,” I went to Menu –> Options –> Data Storage
2. I checked the “store data & podcasts on card” checkbox
3. Upon doing so, NewsBreak displayed a message stating there is already a list of channels on the storage card and asked if I wanted to overwrite those channels – I chose “no.”
4. Then, all of my channels were back

Apparently, NewsBreak just needed to be pointed to the location of my RSS channels. Thankfully, it didn’t automatically overwrite the data on my storage card during the installation. Now, I’m not sure if NewsBreak would overwrite your channels if you had them stored on your device so backup your channels *before* you upgrade to v2.0. I received confirmation from Ilium Software that the reinstall will not overwrite your channels that are stored on the devic. But, I would still recommend backing up your channel list – just in case if the upgrade/reinstall fails.

So, when upgrading to NewsBreak 2.0, you need to do two things: backup your channel list and, after upgrading, reconfigure all of your settings under Menu –> Options.

The page where you download the 2.0 installation file contains instructions on how to install the upgrade but it doesn’t tell you how to get your RSS channels back. I’ve emailed this feedback to Ilium Software so, hopefully, they’ll add some verbiage to this page.

Update (3/19/2007) Post has been updated since Marc, from Ilium Software, has confirmed that the reinstall will not overwrite any RSS channels that are stored on your device. Thanks, Marc!

What’s next for Twitter?

Along with all of the Twitter-hype there have been a lot of people wondering where it will go from here. Among the many posts, here are some I suggest reading: Matt Balez’s RIP Twitter (2007 – 2007), Dave Winer’s The Future of Twitter?, Jeff Ventura’s Where does Twitter go from here? Live, die or evolve?, and the Wall Street Journal’s Friends Swat Twitters and Frustration.

All of these web 2.0/social websites are a natural extension of our basic human tendency (or need) to communicate but there’s a limit before others start to feel like you’re over communicating. This is already happening where some Twitterers are telling their friends to stop posting about what they ate for lunch, dinner, etc. Speaking of, this picture, from Peter Cashmore, does a great job illustrating this point from the perspective of catblogging:

Personally, with Twitter’s current features (and performance issues) I think the Twitter hype will slowly end unless if it evolves into something more useful. That being said, there are some creative uses for Twitter other than posting about yourself. One example is using Twitter as the delivery mechanism for home automation. Another, is using it in the newsroom. So, perhaps, Twitter 1.0 will be a fad but v2.0 will provide more of a value proposition(?).

To Twitter or not to Twitter?

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, here’s an overview: it’s like a micro blog where people answer a simple question of “What are you doing?” By answering this question, in 140 characters or less, it allows you to inform your circle of friends, in real-time, about what you’re doing. You post updates (called tweets) via Twitter.com, mobile phone, IM, or a desktop app (like Twitterrific and Twitteroo). If you’ve connected your mobile phone to Twitter, you’ll get an SMS message whenever your friends posts an update…which is basically a group SMS mailing list – similar to Dodgeball (remember that?) but easier to use.

When I first checked-out Twitter 3 -4 months ago I thought, “Eh, what’s the big deal?” Now that South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) is over and Twitter won the SXSW Web Award, I decided to create an account to see what all the hype is about. After playing around with it for a day or two, I now understand why it’s popular but it’s not for me. I don’t feel the need to post what I’m doing throughout the day. Besides, do people need to know what I’m doing and do they really care? I doubt it.

I think Twitter can cause information overload because there’s no way to filter the noise (e.g., “eating a burrito for lunch”). The potential to receive more noise than signal is quite high. Most people’s lives aren’t that interesting so there’s no need to know all of the details…unless, of course, if you’re a stalker. And, if you are, you’re probably already using Twitter.

So, to Twitter or not to Twitter – that is the question. My answer (for now): not to Twitter.

Btw, if you’re interested in reading some Twitters, here are some relatively well-known people using Twitter: John Edwards, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, and Steve Rubel.