Netflix has long been one of my favorite services. The company began as a DVD rental service, and it eventually began to offer streaming video delivery to its customers via its Watch Instantly offering.
It was this streaming service that attracted me to the company. They offer many hard-to-find documentaries and non-fiction works as well as movies and TV shows that are more common. The streaming delivery is generally quite good.
This week Netflix announced a deal with the EPIX entertainment channel to provide even more movies and premium content. This means more competition for cable companies and other providers, always a good thing for the user.
Internet rules
Google and Verizon stirred things up this week by announcing a set of suggested guidelines for the future of the Internet. Possibly the strongest outcry comes from a recent article on The Huffington Post website in which the author calls this a blatant attempt for corporate interests to take over the Internet.
The author's strongest objection to the proposed guidelines is that the basic, open-and-free model of the Internet we have long enjoyed would not be observed on wireless networks in the future. A wireless carrier could block any website at random based on arbitrary rules including financial gain, one service could charge certain customers more or less for particular services, and so on.
I suspect Google is agonizing over how to compete with Facebook more as time goes on, and this may be one result of their concern. Under the proposed new rules, Google and other companies could do deals with Verizon and other carriers that would favor them and possibly shut out competition, or at least hobble them. This is a really bad proposal and all of us who think so should contact the FCC to register our concern. I have already done so via a link from the Huffington Post article. Here is the web address: http://savetheinternet.com/fcc-comments.
PALM TABLET
Engadget.com reported this week that "trusted sources" indicate that a tablet PC running the Palm webOS will be released in January next year. This is the operating system on the well-regarded but underselling Palm Pre Plus cell phone.
It is beautifully designed and would make a great tablet operating system, possibly one of the few that could compete with the Apple iPad. If the rumor is true, it will probably be announced at the annual Consumer Electronics Show.
Finally there is a minor war going on among sites over reports that many coffee houses and restaurants have begun to ban cell phones and gadgets of all kinds. While this is certainly true of some such establishments, there will probably always be "a place for us" as the song from the musical says. Techies will always have a sanctuary to fire up the tablet or laptop.
Having said this, I do like to sometimes get completely away from the computer and all the other gadgets for a time. Oddly enough, taking a complete break from all the devices seems to recharge my interest in using them when I return. As the cash register said to the calculator, go figure.
E-mail Donnie Jenkins at donniejenkins@yahoo.com.