Letterman on climate change

David Letterman has a new hosting gig – of sorts.

The veteran late-night comedian will in 2016 journey to India to examine how that nation is trying to bring solar power to its entire population within the next decade. It’s a far cry from rattling off the popular Top Ten Lists and Stupid Pet Tricks that were so much a part of his more than three decades of wee-hours television for CBS and NBC. But it’s a chance for Letterman to give voice to the issue of climate change on a new, albeit temporary, home: National Geographic Channel.

Letterman will join Jack Black, Ty Burrell, James Cameron, Thomas Friedman, Joshua Jackson , Aasif Mandvi, Olivia Munn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ian Somerhalder and Cecily Strong in the second season of the documentary series “Years of Living Dangerously,” which explores the issue of climate change and won a 2014 Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. The project is the first Letterman has announced since leaving “The Late Show” on CBS last May.

David Gelber and Joel Bach, the series’ producers, said they thought they noticed Letterman become more animated on “The Late Show” when discussion of climate change came to the fore, and decided to reach out to him. “You could just tell. Whenever they would have a climate discussion, he would really kind of perk up,” noted Bach, in an interview. “And it turns out he does, he cares about it a lot,” he said. “He’s definitely invested in this issue.”

new Apple TV

Apple unveiled a new connected-TV box for the first time in three years Wednesday, turning Apple TV into a modern contender against rivals that have been more responsive to consumers' growing appetite for online media.

"Our vision for TV is simple," Chief Executive Tim Cook said, speaking at an event in downtown San Francisco, where it is expected to show off new iPhones.. "We believe the future of television is apps."

It's more expensive, too. An Apple TV with 32 gigabytes of storage costs $149, and one with 64GB is $199. It will be available in October, and will be sold in more than 180 countries by the end of the year.

Apple TV is streaming media box, which hooks up to your television so you can watch Internet-delivered entertainment like Netflix and other digital media on the big living-room screen. A fresh Apple TV is necessary for the company to stay relevant against competitors, as consumer demand for online media -- and the boxes that stream it -- climbs higher than ever before.

The new Apple TV will include an App Store and a revamped remote with a trackpad and a voice-command button.

The new remote has a glass surface across the top that responds to touch. It lets viewers glide across a set of movies, or to fast-forward through a show.Another button will summon Siri, Apple's voice-command digital assistant. Siri results will search across Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Showtime and Apple's own iTunes, but it omits direct competitor Amazon. The voice-recognition feature also lets viewers tell the Apple TV to jump ahead in a video, or look up content based on the cast, director, age rating or date.

Apple overhauled product's underlying software -- its operating system -- to make the box more like your smartphone with a big world of apps. Called tvOS, it allows Apple TV to have new kinds of media, like games and fitness programs. Apple showed off several that would be available first for Apple TV: They included video essentials like Netflix, Hulu and HBO, as well as applications new to its streaming box like game Crossy Road, the short-term rental company AirBnB, and shopping with Gilt.

In the early days of Apple TV, the company positioned its streaming media box as a "hobby," but Apple's early start in market has made it the biggest selling device of its kind. Apple has sold 25 million in its lifetime, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in March. That beats Roku's 10 million total sold as of last year.

However, Apple TV sat the sidelines for more than three years, and sales suffered. With its focus on products like iPhone and Apple Watch, Apple hasn't upgraded the Apple TV to a new generation since March 2012. Meanwhile, the amount and quality of content online exploded, and competitors like Roku, Amazon and Google were agile. Sales of Apple TV slipped as rivals introduced and updated fresher products with more features and content, according to analyst estimates.

Apple in March cut the price for Apple TV by $30 to $69. The discount suggested the company had a new version on the way, and many expected to see a new Apple TV earlier this year. The company reportedly planned to introduce a new Apple TV box alongside the unveiling of a subscription television service, but difficulty securing deals for TV channels pushed that venture back.

Content sales through Apple TV are big business. In 2013, it sold $1 billion worth of content directly off Apple TV, Cook said last April.

Since Apple's last Apple TV hardware update in March 2012, Google launched its $35 Chromecast streaming dongle, Amazon introduced its $99 Fire TV box and $39 stick, and Roku released its third $100 streaming box and its $50 streaming stick. The low price of Chromecast generated intense demand, while Amazon's Fire TV incorporated features that made Apple's device look outmoded by comparison, such as voice search and an optional gaming controller.

[$149 and $199?  Well if they add CBS and Amazon Instant Video and Fibbage, then yeah maybe.]

iPhone 6S

Apple on Wednesday debuted its newest smartphones, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, giving the devices a new pressure-sensitive display, zippier processor and more powerful camera.

"What we have to show you today is really awesome," CEO Tim Cook said onstage at Apple's presentation, held at the Bill Graham Auditorium in downtown San Francisco. "While they may look familiar, we have changed everything about these new iPhones."

This year's iPhone is Apple's off "S" year. That means Apple keeps the basic design of the device the same but adds other features to attract buyers, like the Siri digital voice assistant in the iPhone 4S and the TouchID fingerprint reader in the iPhone 5S.

A marquee feature for this year's iPhone 6S was expected to be the Force Touch technology used in the Apple Watch, a pressure-sensitive display that responds to various types of touches. The company instead unveiled 3D Touch, a feature that appears to have the same capabilities.

In another bigger change, Siri can be activated via voice for the first time, allowing a user to ask the digital assistant questions or play music by saying "Hey Siri" while washing dishes or preparing a meal. In older models, Siri can only be activated by pressing the phone's home button. The new feature helps Apple catch up to other devices, such as the Amazon Echo speaker and many Android phones, that already offer similar functions.

The new 4.7-inch 6S and 5.5-inch 6S Plus, which are the same size as last year's models, will be available for preorder starting Saturday and available Sept. 25 in the US, UK, China, France, Japan, Australia and other markets. The base-model iPhone 6S will cost $649 off-contract, following Apple's typical pricing model. Prices for the 6 and 6 Plus will be knocked down by $100.

The new phones will include Apple's new A9 chip, which the company claims is 70 percent faster at computing tasks than last year's A8 chip in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. "It delivers a big jump in performance," Apple executive Phil Schiller said onstage. "It's going to make using our phone faster and a lot more fun."

The devices also come with a new 12-megapixel iSight back-facing camera, a boost from the 8-megapixel cameras in last year's phones, and are available in four finishes: silver, gold, space gray and a new rose gold finish. Additionally, the new phones will come with faster LTE and Wi-Fi wireless connections, a faster TouchID sensor, the ability to shoot high-resolution 4K videos and the phone's screen now acts as a flash for selfie pictures.

iPad Pro

Apple's answer for slowing iPad sales: Supersize it!

That's what CEO Tim Cook announced Wednesday, unveiling a new, larger version of the tablet. Called the iPad Pro, the device features a 12.9-inch screen that's designed to be used with two hands, and the ability to run two apps side by side. The goal is to prove the iPad can be more than just a device for surfing the Web and watching videos.

Among the new technologies Apple introduced are a new thin "smart keyboard" that also acts as a cover, which the company said is wrapped in a special fabric. But Apple will also offer a new device called the Apple Pencil, a stylus designed as a more precise way of interacting with the device.

"In just five years, iPad has transformed the way we create, the way we learn and the way we work," Cook said during an event in San Francisco. The iPad Pro, he said, "is the most capable iPad we've ever created."

The iPad Pro will start at $799 with 32 gigabytes of storage, launching in November. The keyboard will cost $169 and the pencil will cost $99.

It's all part of Apple's latest effort to expand interest in the slumping tablet industry. For Apple, iPad sales, which account for about 10 percent of the company's sales, have been the one weak spot in its product line. Apple sold 10.9 million iPads in the three months ended in June. Though seemingly high, and representing nearly a quarter of all tablets sold around the world, sales had still declined 18 percent from the same time last year. That was the sixth consecutive decline for the iPad line.

Analysts say it's not just the iPad. Consumers have been holding on to their tablets longer, opting to buy bigger-screen iPhones and Mac computers instead. It's also been years since Apple has spurred demand by offering any big jumps in technology or a radically new take on its tablet. Updates to the iPad -- including a mini version first introduced in 2012 -- have seen a bump up in technical specs like processor speed, screen resolution and added memory but not much else in the way of game-changing innovation.

an ink-jet printer with lots of ink

Coming up with a simple characterization for the Epson WorkForce ET-4550 EcoTank All-in-One Printer ($499.99) is a challenge. On the one hand, it's a fairly typical office-centric multifunction printer (MFP), and a good fit for either personal use or light-duty shared use in a micro office. On the other, it's expensive for that sort of printer. But as part of the EcoTank family, it's Epson's answer to anyone who has ever complained about the marketing model that gives away the razors (read: printers) to sell the blades (read: ink). With the ET-4550$499.99 at Amazon, you pay full freight for the printer, and save lots of money on ink.

According to Epson, the ET-4550 is essentially identical to the Epson WorkForce WF-2650$78.88 at WalMart, except that it adds an Ethernet connector and—far more important—it doesn't use ink cartridges. Instead, it adds ink tanks on the side of the printer, and ships with bottles of ink, which you pour into the tanks.

Along with the nearly identical features, the two models offer similar performance. There's a big difference in price, with the ET-4550 costing about four times as much. But unless you hardly print at all, it will be a lot less expensive in the long run. The ET-4500 comes with enough ink for 11,000 monochrome pages (if you use it as a replacement for a monochrome laser), or 8,500 color pages, with both yields based on ISO/IEC standard test pages. To print the same number of pages with the Epson WF-2650, you'd have to buy more than $1,600 worth of ink cartridges. And that's not including the cost of the printer.

Sci-Fi Transportation now

In the last century, we had lots of big ideas about how people would get around in the sci-fi future. Flying cars, jetpacks, rockets all over the place. It was pretty awesome. Sadly, none of it has come to pass as of press time, and we're still stuck with the usual planes, trains, and automobiles.

Let's face it: air travel has become pretty boring. The days of jetting across the sky in luxury (and paying through the nose to do it) are long gone, replaced by airlines that cram people in like sardines and nickel and dime them for every amenity. What used to seem like the transportation of the future has lost its luster.

But if we look away from the skies, we can find that futurists are still pushing transportation forward in a variety of unique ways. In this feature, we'll zip around the globe spotlighting some amazing transportation initiatives that seem like they come from the future. From single-family subway cars to blindingly fast trains, these are the most sci-fi transportation methods you can actually ride right now.

Clippers over-the-top?

Steve Ballmer, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, has turned down a $60 million-a-year offer for local TV rights and is forging ahead with a plan to start his own over-the-top streaming network, The Post has learned.

If he follows through on the plan, Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, would be the first owner of a major US sports team to deliver games direct-to-consumer via a Web-based service and not through traditional cable or satellite companies, sources said.

Clippers games are now aired to roughly 5 million Los Angeles-area homes through Fox Sports’ Prime Ticket regional sports network in a deal that runs through the 2015-16 season.

Prime Ticket currently pays the team a rights fee of $25 million a year — and offered a 140 percent increase, to $60 million, but the billionaire Ballmer turned it aside.

Prime Ticket’s exclusive negotiating window closed in June, one source said — meaning Ballmer is free to negotiate with others.

Some observers think the bombastic Ballmer is merely using the threat of forming an over-the-top network as a play to wring more mon­ey from an RSN.

But others think the plan is real.

“Steve Ballmer has not renewed his deal with Fox,” said one source close to the situation. “He’s looking at a [digital] subscription channel.”

The 59-year-old Ballmer’s tenure at Microsoft gave him direct insight into the world of live-streaming video — thanks to the success of its global Xbox gaming console.

While he may have the technological smarts to pull it off, Ballmer may find it hard to earn more than $60 million in revenue a year from a single sport streaming RSN, experts said.

The Clippers would have to sign up around 10 percent of LA’s 5 million households and get a pretty high price for the service, those people said.

“If it costs $12 per month, multiply that by 12 months in 500,000 homes, it would add up to $72 million — but then you’d have to produce the games and market the product,” said one.

And that’s if Ballmer can give fans a reason to subscribe during the five-month off-season.

If he can’t, revenue would only come to $42 million.

“Ballmer is going to want to explore his option on the tech side, but the cable model is still a pretty reliable source of revenue,” said another source familiar with the discussions. “If they go OTT [over-the-top], they’re taking an enormous risk, and they’re not the most prominent team in LA — they are second-best.”

This person believed that Fox’s offer represents a much better deal, but added it appeared Ballmer has his heart set on being a tech pioneer.

Ballmer paid $2 billion for the team in 2014 after then-owner Donald Sterling was caught on tape making racist comments. Sterling was forced by the NBA to sell the team.

At the same time, the NBA might frown on the over-the-top move if Ballmer fails to get a sizable audience.

Reached on Thursday, a Clippers spokesman said, “Steve Ballmer is exploring any and all options, including a new deal with Fox.”

Fox declined to comment.

[What's a few million to Ballmer?  Currently worth $21.6 billion according to Forbes.]

desperately killing Flash

Add Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Netflix and others to the list of those who apparently want to see Flash die.

The worlds largest tech companies, including Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix, are forming the Alliance For Open Media to create an open-source, royalty-free video format, reports Wired. The alliance aims to make a video codec designed for high-quality streaming across a variety of devices.

Adobe Flash was the standard for high quality video playback for a number of years thanks to the fact that it didn't require much computer power to run well. Now it's seen as a serious security hazard and a blight on the internet. Both Chrome and Firefox have plugins to block Flash by default.

As Wired notes, this format would be a tool for major web companies to get away from using Flash to provide streaming video content. According to a blog post by Mozilla, the open-source codec will be released under the Apache 2.0 license.

Since it's royalty-free, virtually anyone would be able to use the codec for their own software. The Alliance is inviting additional parties interested in video to join in helping development.

Notably absent from the Alliance is Apple, which is reportedly trying to make its own content like Amazon and Netflix. Facebook, which is becoming increasingly video focused, is also a major omission.

David Ige's Energy Vision

For the second time this summer, Gov. David Ige shook up Hawaii's energy establishment when he announced Monday he is opposed to importing liquefied natural gas as a source of electric power.

That followed his statement last month that he won't support Florida-based NextEra Energy Inc.'s $4.3 billion proposed purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.

In a nearly one-hour interview Friday with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Ige explained his reasons for the two potentially game-changing announcements.

Hawaii needs an electrical utility with a new business model to get the state to its goal of 100 percent electrical generation from renewable energy resources by 2045, Ige said.

"We are looking for a partner in the electric utility that really embraces 100 percent renewable and, I think, more importantly, changing the business model from the traditional electric utility to what would work in a fully distributed generation renewable future."

Ige, a former electrical engineer, envisions a future where the electrical utility doesn't generate power, but only distributes it. The power will be generated from renewable sources distributed throughout the community, such as the rooftops of Hawaii residents or solar farms developed by parties other than the state's utility.

The typical utility model Hawaiian Electric Co. grew up with has to retire along with the utility's fossil fuel plants, Ige said.

"I think the utility of the future that we would want to see supports 100 percent renewable. It is about distributed generation," he said.

That partner needs to share the state's renewable-energy vision, Ige said. It must embrace the idea that Hawaii is a test bed for renewable-energy research opportunities, help photovoltaic penetration as well as help the state get business and investment partners that will help build research and development.

"I'm not anti-HECO. I'm pro-partner," Ige said. "This environment, with the state setting aggressive policy, we would like to find a utility partner that wants to be part of that environment."

A utility that generates, distributes and sells electricity is not part of that vision. LNG is not part of that vision.

"I definitely would not support, at this point in time, LNG for electricity generation," Ige said, repeating his proclamation from Monday at the Asia Pacific Resilience Innovation Summits & Expo.

The statement caused a stir at the three-day conference on energy strategy. It was praised by environmentalists but criticized by those who argue LNG would serve the state well as a cheaper and cleaner alternative to the oil and coal currently used to generate 80 percent of the state's electricity. Supporters of LNG have said it can serve as a "bridge fuel" as the state shifts to renewable energy.

Hulu with no commercials / NFL on CBS

Noticed that Hulu has introduced a no commercials plan.  The price is $11.99 vs. $7.99 with limited commercials.  What is that?  Like 13 cents a day?

(This makes Netflix look like even more of a bargain.)

In other cordkillers news, CBS is going to stream a couple of NFL games for free.  That's in addition to four playoff games and the Super Bowl.  OK, maybe I'll keep my CBS subscription.

Now if the CBS app would support streaming of the CBS Sports network, you might really have something.