Discrete Track Recording hard drives

Apple's newest iPods use a 1.8" hard drive with a capacity of 80GB per platter. This results in two different capacities - a single-platter 80GB drive and a slightly-thicker 2-platter 160GB drive.

Not content with that, Toshiba has invented a new hard drive technology, known as Discrete Track Recording (DTR). DTR promises to increase capacity by 50% (when combined with existing perpendicular recording technologies). They have already announced a 1.8" drive with 120GB per platter (and therefore 240GB on a 2-platter drive.) They expect to ship these drives in 2009. Expect Apple to ship iPods with this a week later.

They have not yet announced drives with this technology in other form factors, but we can probably expect to find 50% storage increases across the board - meaning 2.5" laptop drives at 480GB. (They did say that the process "is most easily applied to small form factor HDDs", so we may not find 3.5" drives using this until the process matures, but when it does, it would not be unreasonable to expect a 1.5TB drive.)

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NBC proves themselves to be a bunch of greedy pigs

As you may be aware, NBC and Apple have recently had a falling out. NBC may be deciding to stop selling content through the iTunes Store. According to Apple, NBC was insisting on much higher prices - as much as $5 per episode for some shows, and Apple refused to budge. (Apple says that NBC has already walked away from the bargaining table, but other sources say this hasn't been finalized yet.)

For this alone, I applaud Apple. Note that NBC's request would have been more than twice the price they charge for programs on DVD - a typical TV series DVD box set costs $30-50 and contains 20-25 episodes. This equates to a per-episode price of $1.20-2.50. If they think people are going to pay more than twice the DVD price in order to get a low-resolution downloaded version with no surround sound and no bonus materials, they're insane. Apple's pricing ($2 per episode for everything) is, on the other hand, right in-line with what the public has already proven themselves willing to pay.

If that was the end of the story, however, I wouldn't have much to write about. Today, however, the story gets more interesting. NBC has decided to start selling content through Amazon's "Unbox" service. The official reason, they say is because they think Apple's DRM isn't restrictive enough.

For those unfamiliar with the DRM differences between these two systems, let me explain. Apple's "FairPlay" DRM is very simple. For videos, you may play them on any five computers, on as many Apple-TV devices as you want, and on as many iPods as you want (Apple-TVs and iPods must be loaded from an authorized computer) and that's it. Nice and simple.

In comparison, Unbox only allows you to play videos on two computers, and on two portable devices. And you can not authorize one computer to play content from two accounts - so you and your wife had better use the same account or you're going to need two computers attached to the living room TV. And Unbox uses Microsoft's proprietary "WMA" DRM scheme, so users of Apple products (Mac, Apple TV, iPod, etc.) are not welcome.

As a customer, which would you rather use? Are you going to pay 2-4 times the DVD price in order to use a system that places these kinds of restrictions on your purchases? I didn't think so. As John Gruber wrote in his Daring Fireball blog, "This just shows how moronic these NBC clowns are."

The interesting question now will be what NBC does after all their content is removed from iTunes, and appears on Amazon, and the money dries up. Will they:

1. Come crawling back to Apple (with or without a statement why)
2. Do nothing, and simply lose money
3. Declare that there's no money to be made from downloads, and accuse their formerly-loyal download-audience of piracy when DVD sales don't increase.

I predict #3.

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What does the government really mean by "poor"?

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a report on Poverty in America.

Last year, the US Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in America. It stated that there are 37 million poor people in the US, roughly the same as in the past. (A report that came out a few days ago says that the amount of poverty has gone down slightly in the past year.)

What is interesting is that the Census Bureau's definition of poverty is radically different from the popular image. When you talk about poor people, you usually get a mental image of people who are homeless, or living in substandard housing, without enough food to eat, poor medical care, etc. Nobody doubts that such people exist in the US, but most of the 37 million "poor" people described by the Census Bureau don't even come close to this description.

Go read the Heritage Foundation's report (linked above) for an eye-opening examination of what the government considers "poor". Most of the people in this category live better than middle-class families did in the 70's, and better than the average person in most other countries. To quote the article's conclusion:

The living conditions of persons defined as poor by the government bear little resemblance to notions of "poverty" promoted by politicians and political activists. If poverty is defined as lacking adequate nutritious food for one's family, a reasonably warm and dry apartment to live in, or a car with which to get to work when one is needed, then there are relatively few poor per­sons remaining in the United States. Real mate­rial hardship does occur, but it is limited in scope and severity.

Keep this in mind the next time some politician tells you about how we're suffering from a poverty crisis. Sure, there is a huge number of people classified as poor, but that's only because the government has chosen an unrealistic definition of the word. Today's "poor" are living far better than the poor of the 1970's (and even better than much of the middle-class of that time), and the number of people who are truly destitute is much smaller than it was back then.

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