If you have had a fascination with Buck Rogers, Sleeper, FUTURAMA or any other scifi movie/t.v. series about someone who is frozen and wakes up in the future, here is a story you can obsess over:

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, thinks that short-term suspended animation can be used to help stabilize trauma patients on their way to the hospital. In his new TED talk, Roth explains how his technique differs from the cliche of freezing people until science finds a cure for their disease, and how it might drastically increase survival rates both on the battlefield and at home.

When in a suspended state, the body can better cope with the deadly oxygen deprivation that results from shock, massive blood loss, and heart attacks.

[ted id=796]

As a kid there were two things I asked Santa Claus for every year:
1. a robot clone that would do my homework and clean my room and
2. A hovercraft of my very own

** Yes, I ordered the one advertised in the back of the comic book and was sadly disappointed when it was too small to actually fly around in. However, that dream could soon be realized!! At least the second one – and I tell you what, if I come across $13K in the next year – and find somewhere to park the thing in NYC – I am definitely going to buy one! Imagine flying over the traffic in NYC’s rush hour! Ahhh, to dream a little dream… this is exactly one of those things that makes life worth while!!

The hovercraft functions as a stand-alone vehicle, but with the detachable wings in place it becomes a small aircraft capable of a top cruising speed of about 60 miles per hour. While it doesn’t fly very high, the 1.8-liter engine pushes the craft to a ceiling between around 10 feet — plenty high to clear fences, cars and the inevitable slack-jawed onlooker — and has a range of 140 miles.

It was a wonderful frenzy of speculation and doubt when a simple leak on Twitter caused an entire industry to go up in arms about an acquisition that should/could/would never happen, here is why:

1.  Google does not need Brightcove

2. Google has enough exposure to entice Broadcasters and Media companies to use their “platform” to distribute video media online on their own, without just buying a company for their client roster

3. Google has enough resources to create their own CMS within their eco-system such that it wouldn’t make sense to buy something that is built on antiquated operating layers

4. Brightcove is not even in the same league as The Google – if I was Google I would go directly to a Tremor buy out and skip the middle man… just a thought.

Tremor

5. It would only make sense if Google were looking for a vehicle to unleash their own brand of a triple play offering, i.e. True marketing power will come from an entity that “owns” an individuals behaviors from ISP, Mobile and STB (Set Top Box or Cable TV, etc.) – I would add GPS but it is yet to be seen how deeply GPS usage will be opted in to for tracking on mobile devices.  It is apparent that the use of NetBooks and Smart Phones could take down the need for what we accept as our “in vehicle navigation”; However, I predict this will change and devices such as TomTom will be made obsolete by devices that are more mobile and able to multitask.

*Google has pieces of the requisite triple/quadruple play in their ecosystem – take Google voice/phone, google maps, youtube, insight (all their tracking and metrics) – so what is missing?  The STB, so it could make sense if there were a means by which one could inject live targeted ads into Video Broadcasts across STB’s with a micro-behavioral focus, but I don’t think that Google BUYING a CMS like Brightcove would be useful.

Sources tell me that there will be a new release of the Brightcove CMS that will include better turn-key metrics, a more resilient transcoding system and HD players, but I am not clear on if this is a total rebuild for a product that was originally developed to live in flat layers prior to cloud computing and db sharding… approaches to architecture that Google has excelled in from the get go!  The fact of the matter is, Google is in the perfect place to build the better CMS.

I use YouTube and despite a few limitations on video length and some traffic issues at various times of day (to be expected) – it works!

Last of all, we saw what happened when Yahoo! bought Maven Networks, there are many reasons why a company such as Yahoo! would have been better off hiring some developers and building their own CMS with a brilliant Architect at the helm, rather than make yet another half-assed acquisition of a product that barely served it’s purpose.

Between Maven and Brightcove CMS’ there is barely a difference in the backend – and I have seen both – personally monitored and tested – due diligence – and found them to be built on core technologies that are suspiciously similar and that yielded the same issues, weaknesses and overall clumsiness…

IMHO:  Google should not and would not BUY a CMS when they can build their own.  End of story.

Of course this was all rumor-mill to begin with, what this says to me though, Brightcove players (pun intended) are tired of working so hard to bubblegum and paper clip their product and want out.  Who else would start such a rumor, Google?  HA!  I think not…

Look, when Maven “players” were ready to move on, they were the first ones to whisper about who will acquire them.  Alas, I speak not out of ignorance but real, life experience.

What do you think?