Whilst reading the daily rss blog and news feeds i subscribe to, i stumbled across 2 items which i thought were worth mentioning.
I dont usually blog about news or current event type things, in most cases they are done to death. This time however ill make an exception.
First things first was this article from businessweek. Its an interview with Bill Gates about some new things Microsoft are releasing soon. Mr Gates (or Bill as i like to call him 
), makes a comment about how people do want to watch movies on small screens.
But Gates points to the growing phenomenon of kids watching videos during long car trips as proof that there is a market for small screens. “I guess Steve’s kids just listen to Bach and Mozart,” Gates quips. “But mine, they want to watch Finding Nemo. I don’t know who made that, but it’s a really neat movie.”
To start with, when i was a kid i was too busy looking out the window to ever be bothered wanting to watch a movie. On top of that, most of the time if i tried to read or do aything like that i would enter into my ‘dry heaving, hurling’ state.
I cant see a need for car video players, maybe if the parents want somthing to shut the kid up for a few hours or something, i dunno.
Something else i thought was funny was his statement about Finding Nemo. Now am i the only one who thinks that Steve read this and had a big grin on his face? I can just picture Bill Gates taking his kids shopping and they run into the Disney store grabbing Finding Nemo toys and asking to buy them. On the way home they stop by a dvd shop and pick up a few copies of Finding Nemo.
I think Steve is on the right track (as usual) by saying that people dont want to watch video on small screens. There have been portable DVD players with small screens on the market for a while now, yet i have only ever seen one once when i went to america and some guy had one on the plane. He watched a 3 hours movie and the battery was dead so it them turned into a paperweight.
What would be the point of having a portable video device? I dont think you could even compare it to something like the iPod. People use the iPod while they are working or walking or excerising etc. If your going to watch a movie you have to sit and concentrate on it, which kinda makes it only really good for long trips. I guess whatever it takes to stop the kids from howling in the back seat.
So ill wait and see how these ‘Microsoft software’ powered portable video players go, i cant se them having much effect on iPod sales at all. *sigh* Maybe Bill will just make them and give them to his windows service pack team in the hope that they can get Service Pack 2 up to scratch so its at least useable.
Moving right along. In other news, i stumbled across this article from the Guardian. Its about the undrground caverns below Paris and how the members of the police force have found a fully equiped cinema and restaurant in one of the caverns!
Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital’s chic 16th arrondissement.
Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris’s most intriguing recent discoveries.
“We have no idea whatsoever,” a police spokesman said.
I actually read this article twice, cause i thought it was really cool. It goes on to mention the elaborate setup they had including closed circuit security system, power and telephone facilities, cooking facilities and more. It even says that when the police returned with members of the cities electricty board, the poweer had been cut and a message was left saying “Do not try to find us”
How cool is that?! There are secret societies using the caverns underneath Paris for holding secrets meetings, sounds rally cool to me.
The coolest part is the closing quote
Patrick Alk, a photographer who has published a book on the urban underground exploration movement and claims to be close to the group, told RTL radio the cavern’s discovery was “a shame, but not the end of the world”. There were “a dozen more where that one came from,” he said.
“You guys have no idea what’s down there.”
*Ponders what really could be down there*
