A great song from the terribly underrated movie (and maybe Will Ferrell’s best) Stranger Than Fiction.
Nov 122010
The third and final installment* from the late Stiegg Larsson and he doesn’t dissapoint. One of the great things about this trilogy is how different each of the stories in the three books are. Even with the similarities of reading about the same characters doing basically the same thing in each story, Larsson creates a unique story with a new perspective that keeps the series fresh.
In the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest Larsson picks up right where The Girl Who Played With Fire left off, Lisbeth Salander is barely alive and fighting to maintain her innocence. Unlike the previous story, this book deals much more with the political nature of how Lisbeth Salander was abused and forced to live the majority of her life in a mental institution by the authority of the Swedish Secret Police.
If you enjoyed the first two novels, you’ll no undoubtedly enjoy this book which gives some closure to the interesting story surrounding Lisbeth Salander.
*Note: Larsson died after submitting the three books in this trilogy. As it turns out, Larsson intended this to be a series of ten books and there is allegedly a fourth book already written, but not finished that may or may not be published. 
It is interesting to think of what could have been uncovered in the next 7 books because this was such a complex character and this book seemed to tie up all of the loose ends (except for Salander’s twin sister!). It would have been great to learn what different directions he would have taken with this character. But none-the-less, these three books are worth a look.
With the onset of Google TV and surely many to follow, where does Netflix fit into this scenario? Remember, Netflix killed Blockbuster and all the other movie rental chains because they weren’t versatile enough to keep up. They didn’t provide the service to the always anemic American consumer, wanting more, now, faster and cheaper.
Netflix said, don’t drive ALL THE WAY down the street to the movie store, let us mail you your copy of the DVD you want to watch, and it worked. Then they said, don’t wait on the mail, we’ll make movies available by streaming whenever you want. Granted On-Demand provides movies faster (but more expensive) Netflix still has a great business model. Streaming content (somewhat limited but always growing)to compliment the current mailed DVD’s.
Let me start by saying I am a huge Google fan, I think they do more right than wrong and do it in a way that is less evil than most and with Google TV they did it right. Bringing the internet and all its glory straight to your TV. This has kinda sorta been done previously but not nearly as well. Apple TV tried and Roku player did some of this but with remedial success. Google took what they did, made it better and at the same time killed Blueray, 3D and DVR at the same time.
Why is Google TV better? First of all they bring the whole web to your TV not just pieces of it. Previous attempts at this ony allowed you to view certain wrb applications or versions of particular sites. Google TV bring the entire web to your big screen. Now think about how great this really could be. For example, Hulu, Youtube, Amazon, all three of these are great sites. All three of these have proven that they are worthwhile, valuable and effective. Now that they can be accessed on your TV, they are going to be even better and they are going to make your TV even better.
Hulu is cool if you have a laptop and don’t mind watching things on a tiny screen with crappy sound. Or if you’ve gone the route of hooking your computer up to your TV and using your TV as a monitor, but most people don’t go to those lengths. Youtube is roughly the same, if not a little better for use on a computer. Google TV will make both of these sites even better by letting users access that content easily through their TV.
Amazon is a little different, it functions perfectly already. Where they could get even better is if they take advantage of the currently limited streaming video market that Netflix started providing. If they make their pricing aggressive (it’s already only $3.99 per ‘rental’ which is cheaper than most On Demand services) it could put Netflix and all other On-Demand services under water. Amazon is well known for having the largest inventory of products both well known and obscure. If they build their streaming library to rival Netflix and create a subscription fee or lower per streaming fee, why would anyone use Netflix? Netflix will have to adapt to keep up, or they will go the same route that Blockbuster went. My hope is that they actually drop their prices even further and compete to provide the cheapest quickest on demand video service available.
So then how does this effect 3D, DVR and Blueray? Access to more online HD content and more streaming content makes even the thought of a physical medium irrelevant. Blueray might have a great picture but why would you buy a disc when you can stream the same quality content for much cheaper and probably faster (you would after all have to get off the couch to put a Blueray disc into your blueray player…exhausting!).
DVR will become obsolete with all of the information that would normally be stored on your DVR hardrive simple stores in your tv. Not to mention,. You will be able to access all tour favorite shows whenever you want with the previously mentioned sites now that your TV is linked directly to the internet.
As for 3D…that was a terrible idea to begin with. Google TV may not completely disolve the idea of 3D televisions, the trending excitement and more realistic expectations of conectivity through a TV has taken all of the thunder out of 3D’s slim chances of taking off.
The initial Google TV’s may not cause all of these changes right away but they are leading the way for the inevitable change in how we watch TV.
