The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Last week the
Australian TiVo was canned in the blogosphere, labelled "hobbled" due
to its small hard drive and the fact that many of the media player
features won't be available until next year (and will cost extra).
These are understandable complaints from power users, but here at
ITWire I took a roasting for daring to suggest that the TiVo is the
perfect solution for non-tech-savvy users.
I agree that waiting for extra features is frustrating but, purely as a Personal Video Recorder (which is its
primary purpose), Australia's TiVo will be very impressive straight out
of the box. Much of the criticism seemed to come from fanboys of
other high-end PVRs, plus Seven and Nine-haters who were venting their spleens.
Yes the lack of ad-skipping is annoying and
just reinforces the fact that Australians get screwed by the local
networks. Yes the networks are bastards for withholding EPG data and
dragging IceTV through the courts. That doesn't change the fact that
the Australian TiVo is a great solution for the average man on the
street, if not power users. Some media centre owners believe the world
is conspiring against them,
but they have to accept the fact that media centres aren't for everyone
and the average person doesn't want a computer in their lounge room.
As
a blogger and reviewer, it's far easier to say everything is crap
rather than to consider whether it meets the needs of different users.
As a blog reader, it's far easier to make ill-considered critical
comments rather than to make an informed contribution to the debate.
Members of the digerati seem to be so immersed in the digital
lifestyle that they often forget they're not the average user. Just
because something doesn't meet the needs of the digital elite doesn't
automatically make it crap.
David Bass
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