Real Player SP for Mac is being released in beta today, and as you would expect, it's a multi-format player. Unexpected, are new media conversion tools. With Real Player and Real Player converter running in your dock, when visiting a site with, Flash, for example, you can quickly download and save the file. This was once the turf of sketchy utilities from small developers. Additionally and most usefully, the program will also convert those files for a wide range of devices.

Visit a YouTube page for example, and the embedded video will show up in the file list within the Real Player Downloader window. You can then choose to download the file and convert it. The program uses a device model, where you pick the device you want to watch the video on, rather than changing a bunch of settings. You can also choose to convert only the audio, if you find a video podcast that you'd rather simply listen to than watch.

In our tests across three sites, four of five videos successfully encoded to either AppleTV or iPhone format, and all five downloaded successfully. (One clip created an error in the iPhone version, but encoded to AppleTV properly.) Conversion time took about 1.5 times the length of the original clip.

While there are plenty of device presets, and there is a custom option, this is an h.264/263 tool focused on media consumption, not creation: you cannot save the clips as DV, AVCHD, or other formats that would be conducive to editing into longer projects. Another minor issue: Embedded clips tend to be given the name of the site on which they appear, rather than the clip name, meaning it can get confusing to figure out which clip you wanted. Grabbing the video directly from YouTube or Blip for example, names the clip properly.

If you've been following Real for a long time, You might remember the paid "SuperPass" option for the player, and indeed that's the origin of the "SP" in the name. However, Schussler says these days those letters stand for social and portable, as you can take the content with you, and also share it immediately on facebook, twitter, etc. More importantly those features are now free.

You probably have a media player you're quite happy with, but if you want to save videos you find online for personal playback on your phone or other H.264/263 device, Real Player is a simple, unobstrusive way to do it, and it works across browsers.

However for me, the most interesting part of the book has little to do with Jobs. It's Kahney's insight into the design process of Jonathan Ive. In fact the book could've been subtitled inside Ive's Brain. Without living in the same enigmatic cloud as Jobs, Ive emerges as an approachable, but intense perfection. Yin to Jobs' yang. The book is our best look yet into the post-iPod, pre-iPhone period at Apple, with a great deal of time spent on the development and refinement of OS X, including Jobs' involvement literally at the pixel level when it came to icon design.

Kahney summarizes each chapter with a lessons learned style bulleted list. Unfortunately, as most have discovered in chronicling Apple, there are so many exceptions and asterisks, it's hard to find many business truths that hold true over the long term.

If you're looking for a calmer, insightful look into the way Steve Jobs operates, this is your book. Kahney never absolves Jobs of many of the legends, but rather paints a more measured, analytical picture of a complex man, and might give us some clues as to where the company is headed next.

(Amazon Link)

In the past we've seen Apple partner with Pepsi for music giveaways, buymusic.com take on Apple, and Microsoft's Zune. It would've been logical to expect Amazon to push the Kindle, or Barnes & Noble to promote the nook. No Droid ad, not even a hulu ad. What does it mean? Has Apple conquered digital media so thoroughly, and has the e-reader industry so frozen in their tracks, that no one bothered to compete?

With the exception of FLO tv which is only a competitor to Apple in a vague sense, and an ad for fifth/sixth place Boost mobile, (and we'll throw in the google search ad) it was the first Super Bowl in maybe ten years to not feature any direct competitor to Apple. Is it the biggest sign of Apple dominance, or merely the calm before the storm?

They are taking production up a notch this year- they have added a blimp with a "rogue hampster crew".  And don't miss the super too-cute-to-be-true part: a halftime within the puppy bowl- Kitty Half-Time Show.  So take a break from the Super Bowl action...you don't need to hear more commentary (those guys don't know what they're taking about!)  Watch the Puppy Bowl.   It's a great way to enjoy the super bowl with your Mrs.

Puppy Bowl VI

Airs this Sunday, February 7 from 3-5PM e/p on Animal Planet.  

I think its interesting to hear the similarities in experiences, and the ongoing search to figure out just how to get your app seen above 140,000 other apps:

Enjoy:

In this TDL Profile, Dan talks about his journey, and gives us the most info we'll probably ever know about the workings of an Apple ad shoot, as well as why he became a comedian, and how his tech know-how gives him a leg-up  on other comedians:

Well Hallmark is trying to take augmented reality mainstream with a new line of greeting cards that have what they call "an online surprise." As you'll see in the video, it is pretty cool, but this might not be the best use of the technology. Plus, I'm not sure that the greeting card buying and receiving audiences are necessarily the most likely to even grasp that their card can do this. Here's a look: