RICK ASTER

What’s coming — and what does it take to be ready for the future?


RICK ASTER’S WORLD


August 2008. The High Cost of Radio

The satellite radio merger has been approved, and this event may mark the beginning of the end of radio as we know it. . . . (read more)

July 2008. The End of the CD Era

It used to be that an album implied a CD. If you had a download of an album, or if you had it on your music player, that was a secondary version of the album. But that’s about to flip. . . . (read more)

June 2008. Unicode Takes Over the Internet

In the last three years, Unicode has gone from being a curiosity on the web to being the dominant character set of web pages. Basically what this means is that any character you might see printed in a magazine can also be displayed on a web page. . . . (read more)

May 2008. Quick Answers: The Next Big Internet Trend

I knew something had changed when I started to hear “over a thousand friend requests” said with a sigh. . . . (read more)

April 2008. Interactive Exercise Video

Exercise video has been a staple of the fitness industry ever since the early days of the VCR. So why not an interactive exercise video? Why couldn’t we have, in effect, an exercise video game? . . . (read more)

March 2008. One Phone

When you look at it as a question of user interface design, the phone system is a mess. . . . (read more)

February 2008. Rock Band and the Rock Drum Set

A hit video game is boosting the electronic drum set. . . . (read more)

January 2008. Digital-Ready Documents

Paper documents still have a place in our daily lives, but that place is becoming more and more ephemeral. . . . (read more)

December 2007. An LED Room Lighting Installation

The newer LED accent lights are nearly bright enough to light a room — so could you put several of them together to create a room light? . . . (read more)


RICK ASTER’S WORLD HISTORY

June 1999Rude Hair
July 1999Divx Folds
August 1999Computer Revivals
October 1999The World Wide Web Changes the Political Process
February 2000XHTML: The Next Step for HTML
May 2000 Web Integration and Business Integrity
June 2000 Microsoft Faces the Blue Screen of Death
July 2000 What’s Happening to the Major Record Labels?
August 2000The Decline of Content
September 2000 Mainframe Computers Quietly Disappear
October 2000 Losing Control of the Media
November 2000 The Lie of Absolute Morality
January 2001Small Media
March 2001Mir
April 2001Bad Ideas in Advertising
May 2001Education Breaks Loose
February 2002Accounting’s Golden Age is Over
March 2002Saving Real Estate With Flat-Panel Displays
April 2002Miniaturization and the Loss of Privacy
May 2002The New Spiritual Economy
June 2002New Optical Disk Formats
July 2002"Stone Soup" Capitalism
August 2002No Music on Internet Radio
September 2002Simplifying Language for Global Communication
October 2002Light Gets Lighter
November 2002DVD Format Sparks Music Video Sales
December 2002The High Price of Metal
January 2003Say Cheese! Kodak, McDonald’s Not Smiling
February 2003What to Do When the Power Goes Out
April 2003Deflationary Forces
May 2003IPod On Stage
June 2003How Do Genetic Diseases Move?
July 2003Spam Destroys the E-Mail Standard
August 2003Lease Expiration
September 2003Wanted: Music Videos That Don’t Look Like Commercials
October 2003 Generation Gap in Software Development
November 2003It’s a Thin, Thin World
December 2003Concert DVDs Fill Gaps
2004The Commercial-Free Mind
January 2005Ring Out the Analog
February 2005Recruiters: the Next Travel Agents?
March 2005The DNA Photon Hypothesis
April 2005Plug In a New Computer
May 2005Sailing to the North Pole
June 2005A Future for Broadcasting?
July 2005Propping Up Software Prices
August 2005A Web Site With a TV Channel
September 2005Unprepared at All Levels
October 2005Cutting Back on Moving Parts
November 2005The Cable-Free Diary
December 2005The Copy-Protected Robot
January 2006Consolidating Utilities
February 2006The Perils of Commercial E-Mail
March 2006In Search of Open Standards
April 2006Release Day in the Record Stores
May 2006Running With Glucosamine
June 2006Moving to Cyberspace
July 2006Walking is More Than a Metaphor
August 2006Film Lives On
September 2006Real Estate and a Reluctant Economy
October 2006Uses for a Faster Computer
November 2006Remote Groceries
December 2006A Technology Transition in the Automobile Industry
January 2007The Clone-Free Diet
February 2007Staying Culturally Connected Without Flying
March 2007Space Jumping
April 2007Digital Music Players Change CD Mastering
May 200710 Updates
June 2007Energy Prices Slam Online Markets
July 2007In the Electric Car Era
August 2007Military Band Music
September 2007The Northwest Passage Is Open
October 2007Three New E-Commerce Experiences
November 2007The 911 Network
December 2007An LED Room Lighting Installation

Rick Aster’s Notebook | Fish Nation Information Station