Last week I talked about the free web casting being done at hulu.com. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to check that out. I’m very impressed they have all of the Highlander episodes. I’ve been trying to collect those on dvd but now I can watch them for free.
There’s more than one sheriff in town! Fancast is also providing on demand web broadcasting of television programs and feature films. Fancast programming is also funded by advertising so its free to us. The programming is a little different than hulu giving us more selections in viewing. I was so enthralled with the Jericho series I watched the whole thing. I also enjoyed watching the remake of the Planet of the Apes.
Unfortunately I did not see an option for getting the embed code to include programming on a web page but if you know HTML you can cut and paste the link into you page as a hyperlink.
I just discovered something exciting in the area of education and entertainment. It goes by the unlikely name of hulu and it allows you to watch television programs and movies on demand over the World Wide Web. You can even embed a link to a show as I have for the original episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
This site offers television shows organized by genre. Some of the choices are classics while many are new. My favorites are the SciFi and Fantasy, Technology, and Travel and Nature. The movies seems consistent with what you would find broadcast on cable tv. The big difference is there is no subscription price. The programs include limited and brief commercial announcements but nothing compared with what you will find on regular tv. I also like being able to start and pause the program whenever I wish.
You ought to surf out to www.hulu.com and check it out for yourself.
Perhaps the days of subscribing to cable are numbered!
Kevin Kelly speculates on how the World Wide Web will advance in celebration of its 5,000th day. I’m sharing this talk with the students in my Machine Organization course during its second week because I want them to have a modern context in which to examine the internal workings of the black box.
I agree with Kelly’s depiction of the web as a single machine. Complex as it may be it is interconnected. Each part can communicate with any other part. Information can be shared freely. The video clip you just watched actually lives on one of Google’s servers. Its not at EduBlog. Its not at my site. We don’t even know where the server is and its doesn’t matter. All we need to know is how to access the information we want.
SETI has been using a collaborative network of volunteer computers to search of extraterrestial life for years. This is one of the first cyber collaborations that will become common soon.
Web based applications such as Google docs free users from the limitations of their operating systems because the actual work is done by the web browser and server located around the planet. UNIX, Windows, and OS/X machines can all collaborate regardless of their differences.
Open source software developers have been leading the way. UNIX was the prototype. Since its very inception a loosely knit community of co-developers have been adding functionality to it for the good of mankind rather than personal profit. There are a host of other open source products available today. GNU actively promotes the open source philosophy and offers a host of free products you can download for free. Now there is a movement to provide open source textbooks to help reduce the cost of higher education.
No one really knows what the future holds but it seems to be a better place and time than we have ever enjoyed. All it takes are more bright young minds to make it happen.
