Is this the Real Thing ?

Some time, on week-ends, i'm posting a little "tech" article, and here is one. However it's not totally without a link with Disney as Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney's biggest stockholder and member of the WDC board of directors.

So. Next wednesday, January 27th, all Apple geeks - and i'm one of them! - will hold their breath during Steve's keynote at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco where he will announce the highly-awaited Apple's latest creation, the ITablet - or ISlate, or IPad, or IEverything you want. Fans expectations on this new multi touch product are pretty high, may be a little bit too high...

However, considering that Steve Jobs is supposedly "extremely happy" with the new product i think we can await a kind of high-tech E Ticket from the maestro, another big WOW! I can't wait to see if once again Apple will succeed to create a new i-can't-live-without-it product...

Of course everybody would like to know how the tablet will look, how magic the user interface will be, etc... but as a analyst said recently: "All Apple wizards working on the project seems to have disappear in a black hole"...and just like real black holes, nothing gets out of it.

But recently on Youtube two videos appeared, supposedly showing the awaited ITablet. Is it the real thing? Could be, but probably not as many people think it's a fake. If it is a fake, i must say it's a brilliant one. So brilliant that i'm still not totally convinced that it is one! Why? Because the tablet's user interface that you will see on the videos could really been created by Apple wizards. It works like magic. Have a look, and i'll meet you right after for one more thing.







Pretty cool, wasn't it? Now, the reason why i think it's not the real ITablet is because of the date these videos were posted on Youtube - December 29th, almost four weeks ago. If they show the real product there is no doubt that Apple would have asked Youtube to remove them, right? BUT Apple also know that once a video is released on the web, even if their lawyers react the same day, it's too late to stop it. The video has been downloaded and will re-appear the next day on another channel, etc...

SO, if these videos shows the real Apple Tablet - and although Steve is probably totally furious by now - they could decide to don't say anything which could be the best strategy to keep the project secret as viewers will think that "the videos are obviously a fake, if they were not, Apple would have asked for their removal". You got the idea of the third degree strategy? Now, may be i'm more machiavelic than Steve can be (not sure, though!) and very probably these videos DON'T show Apple's "latest creation". All we have to do now is to wait three more days to get the answer. Which is not that long to wait, isn't it?

Picture: copyright Apple Inc

Bad News from the Stars...

"Bad news from the stars" was the title of a 1980's LP album by genius french song writer Serge Gainsbourg, but it's a good title for this article as some days the news are not that good.

Yesterday, Apple C.E.O Steve Jobs announced that he "decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June" because his "health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought...". Tim Cook, Apple C.O.O will, from now, take care of the day-to-day operations.

Frankly, i have a bad feeling about Steve's health. I do hope that he will recover soon and be really back next summer because not only Apple needs his visionary talent to create great products, but Disney too, and here is why.

First, we have to thank him for all the great Mac products, computers of course, not only beautifully designed - thanks to the great designer Jonathan Ives - but also working with the best reliable OS. Then there is all these tech revolutions that happened thanks to Apple - the IPod, the amazing IPhone, etc... But all Disney fans must not forget what Steve brought to the Disney world.

Think one minute: without Steve's clear vision of the future and his trust in digital animation, there would have been no Pixar Animation Studios. Now, remember how was going the WDC at the end of Eisner's era? Not very well, right? And at this time they did make a lot of money thanks to the distribution and merchandise products of Pixar movies! Can you imagine what would have happened to the WDC without them? Thanks god, the company have now Bob Iger, a C.E.O who understood that a right vision was more important than ego, and we know all the good decisions that he took since then. And Steve is part of the WDC administrators board.

But let's come back to Pixar. Thanks to Pixar existence, we had all these beautiful animated films created by the extremely talented Pixar artists leaded by John Lasseter. And now, John's vision for the Disney theme parks attraction developments is the best thing that happened for Disney fans since a looong time.

So, you see, without Steve Jobs first vision 23 years ago when he bought Pixar to Lucasfilm Computer Division, all the present - and the future - of the WDC would have been very different. That's why we all have to thanks Steve, and send him our best wishes for his recovery.



There is also another bad news today with the death of famous TV Irish American actor Patrick McGoohan. Two-time Emmy award winner, he is best known for the cult tv series "The Prisoner" - only 17 episodes, but always one of the best tv series ever produced. As we know, the main character spends the entire series trying to escape from The Village and to learn the identity of his nemesis, Number One. when it was released the Prisoner was a completely new, cerebral kind of series, stretching the limits of the established television formulas. Its influence has been echoed in Lost, Babylon 5, Nowhere Man, I-man, The Truman Show, The Simpsons, Reboot, even American Idol teaser ads.

McGoohan also worked for Disney on The Three Lives of Thomasina and The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh movies. He was one of several actors considered for the role of James Bond in Dr.No, but he turned down the role as well as the one of Simon Templar for The Saint!

In an 1977 interview, McGoohan said:

“I think progress is the biggest enemy on earth, apart from oneself… I think we’re gonna take good care of this planet shortly… there’s never been a weapon created yet on the face of the Earth that hadn’t been used…

…We’re run by the Pentagon, we’re run by Madison Avenue, we’re run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don’t revolt we’ll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche… As long as we go out and buy stuff, we’re at their mercy. We’re at the mercy of the advertiser and of course there are certain things that we need, but a lot of the stuff that is bought is not needed…

…We all live in a little Village… Your village may be different from other people’s villages but we are all prisoners.”

Patrick McGoohan died at Santa Monica at 81 years old and i send my best thoughts to his friends and family.

Will Disney release new video games for the Apple IPhone ?

On March 6, Apple released what every programmer was waiting for: the IPhone SDK.
With this tool, new IPhone applications will appear in June and be release through ITunes, some of them free, others not.

But one thing is sure: the IPhone, before the end of the year will be not only a mobile phone, not only a great IPod, not only a perfect video player, but also it will be very close to a Sony PSP, and yes, with a lot of games available.
Sega and Electronic Arts have already developed IPhone games as you will see below, and yesterday, Namco announced an IPhone version of the Pacman and Galaga games, Popcap Games announced they will enhance and release new IPhone versions of their famous games Bejeweled and Zuma, and Gameloft also announced officially that they will release 15 new games for the IPhone!



So, is Disney going to develop new games specially for the IPhone? In spite nothing has been officially announced yet, i can tell you that the answer will be: YES!

Not only because Steve Jobs is Disney's biggest stock holder and member of the board, but mostly because Disney really want to make more and more money through his on-line products.

Take, for instance, this February 20 article from the very good appleinsider web site, where we can learn that "Disney produces first movie-license iPod game":
"Slipping through the cracks of the week's releases is the first iPod game to draw on a movie license: Disney Online Studios' Pirates of the Caribbean: Aegir's Fire.

Compatible with both newer iPod classic and iPod nano devices as well as the older fifth-generation iPod with video, the new game is based on a new story set in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy's universe.

Players chiefly engage in ship-to-ship combat over the course of 30 missions and are encouraged to use the iPod's click wheel as though it were a boat's steering wheel.

Gamers can also upgrade their ship and bring on well-known characters from the movies as crew members, Apple says.

The game is priced at the same $5 as for all iPod titles and is only the second game based on an outside movie or TV license, the other being an adaptation of ABC's ongoing Lost TV show."

And also this yesterday's article of the Silicon Alley insider web site "Disney: $123 Million From iTunes Since 2006" where they reveal that "Disney CEO Bob Iger tells the audience at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit that he's sold 4 million movies and "40 to 50" million videos through iTunes since he launched the service in 2006."

Not to mention this other MyWay.com news "Iger: Disney to Reap $1 Billion Online" where we can learn that "The Walt Disney Co. expects to collect $1 billion in revenue from online content this fiscal year, a significant rise from estimates for fiscal 2007, CEO Robert Iger said Monday."

So,considering that Apple will definitely sell this year 10 millions IPhone, and many more in the years to come, you can be DEAD sure that Bob Iger is not going to let escape the phenomenal amount of dollars Disney can reasonably expect from the sale of specially-made-for Iphone video games.

Now, i know, each of us who tried before to play a video game on a mobile phone was stunned to see how bad it looked. But, you see, the IPhone is NOT a "normal" mobile phone, it's a computer, the smallest computer available on the planet.
Everyone who own already this beautiful device knows it. And its possibilities are more than amazing. Not to mention, too, that in June, Steve Jobs will proudly announce the new 2.0 software version and a 3G IPhone. And, just like last year, it's going to be a new revolution in the mobile world.



When Steve made his SDK announcement one week ago, two demos of IPhone video games were shown to the audience. Each game is played using only the multi touch function and IPhone accelerometer. For each, the companies - Sega and Electronic Arts - had two weeks only to create them! That's not a lot of time indeed to develop new video game for a new kind of device, but have a look at the result. The first video below is the "Super Monkey Ball" developed by SEGA for the IPhone.





This other one, from Electronic Arts, is called "Spore", where a fish must eat smaller than him and avoid to be eaten by bigger than him!



And what about this"Wing Commander" which do a great use of the IPhone accelerometer.



I agree that Sony PSP games are still superior, but if you keep in mind that these three games were developed in only two weeks, just to be ready for Steve Jobs keynote presentation, you will guess what we can expect for the end of the year, whether they will come from these different companies.....or from Disney.