Frank Quattrone, the former investment banking star sidelined in a four-year fight over obstruction of justice charges, returns to the tech IPO bandwagon with his firm Qatalyst Partners serving as financial advisor to filer QuinStreet.
QuinStreet of Foster City, California, on Tuesday priced 10 million shares at a $17 to $19 range, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document, citing Mr. Quattrone's Qatalyst as the company's financial advisor.
Mr. Quattrone -- who took public Netscape, Amazon.com, and Cisco, among others -- was the IPO deal maker at Credit Suisse during the go-go era Internet boom of the 1990s.
The former Internet investment star, Mr. Quattrone returns to the stage at time when the venture industry has lacked the boutique bank expertise of year's past to help entrepreneurs navigate the public markets. The smaller banks mostly went away after the dot-com crash as the industry steered toward larger deals with higher management fees and markets that were supportive of M&A activity.
QuinStreet is expected to go public the week of February 8, according to IPO watcher Renaissance Capital.
Foster City, California, QuinStreet promises clients improved results from search engines, serving qualified leads or targeted clicks to customers. The company's financials make it a strong contender to go public. For fiscal 2009, it reported a $17.3 million profit and reported profits ranging $12.9 million to $15.6 million a year dating back to 2005.
Founded in 1999, QuinStreet has raised about $60 million in venture capital from the likes of Granite Global Ventures, Split Rock Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Catteron Partners, Partech International, Focus Ventures, Rosewood Capital, Charter Growth Capital, VSP Capital, J&W Seligman, and Stanford University.
on 27 January 2010, 11:32
by Red Herring Staff
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Jan 28, 2010
Innovation on Wheels: Tesla IPO Coming
Electric-auto maker Tesla is quietly revving up plans to file its widely expected initial public offering, according to reports.
San Carlos, California, Tesla is known for its Roadster electric two-seater sports car built on a Lotus platform that costs $109,000. Company founder Elon Musk indicated last year that an IPO was in the offing by 2008 or 2009, but economic conditions have likely delayed the company's S-1 filing.
Tesla is expected to file "any day" now with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public, according to a source cited by Reuters.
The six-year-old startup has been widely watched for its promise to bring sexy all-electric sports cars to consumers. The startup is working on a second car, its Model S, that is hopes will have a wider appeal with its $57,000 base price. The cars run on lithium-ion batteries -- the same ones that power laptops -- and boast a range of 200 miles per charge.
Company founder Elon Musk, who co-founded PayPal, has gambled heavily with his own capital on Tesla. Mr. Musk has personally staked over $70 million on the company that has taken at least $270 million in financing. The company attracted a whopping $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy in June of 2009 to support development and production of its Model S.
Tesla backers include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Capricorn Management, The Bay Area Equity Fund, Daimler AG, Aabar Investments, Valor Equity Partners, The Westly Group, Compass Venture Partners, and Technology Partners, among others.
The company has delivered more than 700 Roadsters to customer in the United States and Europe.
on 20 November 2009, 16:09
by Red Herring Staff
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San Carlos, California, Tesla is known for its Roadster electric two-seater sports car built on a Lotus platform that costs $109,000. Company founder Elon Musk indicated last year that an IPO was in the offing by 2008 or 2009, but economic conditions have likely delayed the company's S-1 filing.
Tesla is expected to file "any day" now with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public, according to a source cited by Reuters.
The six-year-old startup has been widely watched for its promise to bring sexy all-electric sports cars to consumers. The startup is working on a second car, its Model S, that is hopes will have a wider appeal with its $57,000 base price. The cars run on lithium-ion batteries -- the same ones that power laptops -- and boast a range of 200 miles per charge.
Company founder Elon Musk, who co-founded PayPal, has gambled heavily with his own capital on Tesla. Mr. Musk has personally staked over $70 million on the company that has taken at least $270 million in financing. The company attracted a whopping $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy in June of 2009 to support development and production of its Model S.
Tesla backers include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Capricorn Management, The Bay Area Equity Fund, Daimler AG, Aabar Investments, Valor Equity Partners, The Westly Group, Compass Venture Partners, and Technology Partners, among others.
The company has delivered more than 700 Roadsters to customer in the United States and Europe.
on 20 November 2009, 16:09
by Red Herring Staff
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100 GLOBAL VCs
For the first time since the venture industry’s creation, Red Herring will rank the best performers on quantitative and qualitative basis. This endeavor comes at a juncture where the asset class remains imperiled from many fronts. The love story between Sand Hill Road and Wall Street seems to have faded. In spite of astronomic riches, economic successes of the past, and countless startups with over $100 million in yearly revenue awaiting for a window to go public the future does not look bright. Liquidity events and returns have fallen to their lowest point, and limited partners are reluctantly accepting capital calls from venture firms to replenish their coffers. They are publicly complaining about the venture capitalists’ dysfunctional compensation scheme that encourages them to live off management fees instead of capital gains. Even the Obama administration has targeted the venture funds and is trying to tax them, provoking their ire and most likely jeopardizing the golden goose’s future.
Red Herring has screened the Global VC 200 finalists from among more than a thousand known and active venture funds across the globe. It has selected the Top 100 and remarkably enough, realized that this group represents almost all of the exits, returns, or liquidity events that have happened since 2003. It does not mean that others have not performed but that the recent vintage funds (1999 and after) have rarely provided to their limited partners the returns expected. Little has been said about the consistency of the best players and more importantly of their ability to navigate across continents with portfolio companies established in such places as Shanghai, Berlin, or Tel Aviv.
But Red Herring is not resting at that stage. We ranked the relative weight and contribution of each of those firms and used a multi-criterion, weight-averaged model. We will publish that list in the coming days. Let me just say that we did not anticipate nor expect the surprises from the information that we unearthed from public, semi-public, and private sources. We would like to thank those firms who shared information and enabled us to make apples-to-apples comparisons by identifying their portfolio companies’ performances. We also thank the limited partners who have spent hours talking about theirmanagers and shared their perspective. We took all the data into account. After more than eight months, we are ready to reveal the first round of analysis. Of course, we humbly accept all criticism of this pioneering effort, which has already triggered some reactions from venture funds that had not been selected for the Red Herring Global VC 200.
Firms to make the Red Herring Global VC 100 list largely hail from the United States. This only reflects a U.S. venture industry that is older and more experienced than its peers in Asia and Europe. However, if the past andmacroeconomic trends recently taught us a lesson, Asia will grow in vigor in that domain as well for it has a large industrial base, a world class education system, and plenty of capital, notwithstanding many supportive governments, unlike the U.S. Congress, which have understood that most jobs are created after an IPO, not before. At the recent International Business Forum in San Francisco, Dixon Doll, the exiting National Venture Capital Association chairman, summarized the state of the industry. He called for greater transparency and collaboration among bankers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalist. It is hoped that Red Herring is doing its part with the upcomingGlobal VC 100 rankings. Stay tuned.
Alex Vieux
Publisher and CEO
Red Herring
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Red Herring has screened the Global VC 200 finalists from among more than a thousand known and active venture funds across the globe. It has selected the Top 100 and remarkably enough, realized that this group represents almost all of the exits, returns, or liquidity events that have happened since 2003. It does not mean that others have not performed but that the recent vintage funds (1999 and after) have rarely provided to their limited partners the returns expected. Little has been said about the consistency of the best players and more importantly of their ability to navigate across continents with portfolio companies established in such places as Shanghai, Berlin, or Tel Aviv.
But Red Herring is not resting at that stage. We ranked the relative weight and contribution of each of those firms and used a multi-criterion, weight-averaged model. We will publish that list in the coming days. Let me just say that we did not anticipate nor expect the surprises from the information that we unearthed from public, semi-public, and private sources. We would like to thank those firms who shared information and enabled us to make apples-to-apples comparisons by identifying their portfolio companies’ performances. We also thank the limited partners who have spent hours talking about theirmanagers and shared their perspective. We took all the data into account. After more than eight months, we are ready to reveal the first round of analysis. Of course, we humbly accept all criticism of this pioneering effort, which has already triggered some reactions from venture funds that had not been selected for the Red Herring Global VC 200.
Firms to make the Red Herring Global VC 100 list largely hail from the United States. This only reflects a U.S. venture industry that is older and more experienced than its peers in Asia and Europe. However, if the past andmacroeconomic trends recently taught us a lesson, Asia will grow in vigor in that domain as well for it has a large industrial base, a world class education system, and plenty of capital, notwithstanding many supportive governments, unlike the U.S. Congress, which have understood that most jobs are created after an IPO, not before. At the recent International Business Forum in San Francisco, Dixon Doll, the exiting National Venture Capital Association chairman, summarized the state of the industry. He called for greater transparency and collaboration among bankers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalist. It is hoped that Red Herring is doing its part with the upcomingGlobal VC 100 rankings. Stay tuned.
Alex Vieux
Publisher and CEO
Red Herring
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Better Place Juices Up $350M
Better Place on Monday scored $350 million in funding to boost development of its global network of battery services for all-electric vehicles.
Palo, Alto, California-based Better Place had previously raised $200 million in October 2007. The new round was at a $1.25 billion post-money valuation.
“We believe the switch from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles will create future growth opportunities in the auto and utility industries, and we are delighted to take the opportunity of investing in Better Place to put HSBC at the heart of these developments,” said Stuart Gulliver, executive director of HSBC Holdings, in a statement.
Funding was led by HSBC Group and was joined by Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Lazard Asset Management, Israel Corp, VantagePoint Venture Parnters, Ofer Hi-Tech Holdings, Morgan Stanley Principal Invesments, and Maniv Energy Capital.
Better Place is working on a network of swappable batteries and services for all-electric cars. The company plans to plans to have a service network in place for Renault-built electric cars by the end of 2011 in Israel and Denmark.
Under the deal, Kevin Adeson, HSBC’s chief of global capital financing, will join the company’s board of directors. HSBC’s investment gives it a 10 percent ownership position.
Better Place is not the only upstart focused on battery-swapping stations and services. China’s GreenTech Energy Tech, a startup so far bankrolled mostly by its founder, has similar ambitions for cities across China. Green Tech Energy is looking at partnerships with gas stations to distribute charged batteries for cars that come in and wants to develop charge stations that can provide a quick recharge in about 20 minutes.
GreenTech Energy Tech is a Red Herring Global 100 winner.
on 25 January 2010, 12:54
by Red Herring Staff
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Palo, Alto, California-based Better Place had previously raised $200 million in October 2007. The new round was at a $1.25 billion post-money valuation.
“We believe the switch from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles will create future growth opportunities in the auto and utility industries, and we are delighted to take the opportunity of investing in Better Place to put HSBC at the heart of these developments,” said Stuart Gulliver, executive director of HSBC Holdings, in a statement.
Funding was led by HSBC Group and was joined by Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Lazard Asset Management, Israel Corp, VantagePoint Venture Parnters, Ofer Hi-Tech Holdings, Morgan Stanley Principal Invesments, and Maniv Energy Capital.
Better Place is working on a network of swappable batteries and services for all-electric cars. The company plans to plans to have a service network in place for Renault-built electric cars by the end of 2011 in Israel and Denmark.
Under the deal, Kevin Adeson, HSBC’s chief of global capital financing, will join the company’s board of directors. HSBC’s investment gives it a 10 percent ownership position.
Better Place is not the only upstart focused on battery-swapping stations and services. China’s GreenTech Energy Tech, a startup so far bankrolled mostly by its founder, has similar ambitions for cities across China. Green Tech Energy is looking at partnerships with gas stations to distribute charged batteries for cars that come in and wants to develop charge stations that can provide a quick recharge in about 20 minutes.
GreenTech Energy Tech is a Red Herring Global 100 winner.
on 25 January 2010, 12:54
by Red Herring Staff
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Jan 27, 2010
Meet the iPad
on 27 January 2010, 11:21
by Lalee Sadighi
After months of speculative buzz, Apple on Wednesday announced its much–anticipated tablet device, the iPad, in front of a packed audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
The iPad, which looks like an oversized iTouch, will allow people to take their movies, TV shows, music, games, and books with them on the go.
"We want to kick off 2010 with a truly revolutionary and magical product," CEO Steve Jobs told the audience. "All of us use laptops and smart phones now. "It's time, he said, for a third category of device."
The new touchscreen tablet computer is a cross between a laptop and a smart phone and its starting price is $499.
Mr. Jobs said the device would have a wide range of uses, from emailing and web browsing to video viewing and reading e-books.
“If there’s going to be a third category it has to be better at these tasks, otherwise it has no reason for being,” Mr. Jobs said.
Anticipation for the iPad was particularly high given Apple’s huge success with the iPhone, which has caused a revolution in the smartphone industry and left big companies like Nokia and Microsoft struggling to catch up.
Mr. Job, who was still looking thin after a fight with cancer that included a liver transplant, triumphantly challenged the world’s biggest mobile technology companies, declaring that Apple’s total revenue from mobile gear – including its iPod and iPhone lines – now exceeded that of world mobile leader Nokia.
“We’re a mobile company. That’s what we do,” he said.
on 27 January 2010, 11:21
by Lalee Sadighi
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by Lalee Sadighi
After months of speculative buzz, Apple on Wednesday announced its much–anticipated tablet device, the iPad, in front of a packed audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
The iPad, which looks like an oversized iTouch, will allow people to take their movies, TV shows, music, games, and books with them on the go.
"We want to kick off 2010 with a truly revolutionary and magical product," CEO Steve Jobs told the audience. "All of us use laptops and smart phones now. "It's time, he said, for a third category of device."
The new touchscreen tablet computer is a cross between a laptop and a smart phone and its starting price is $499.
Mr. Jobs said the device would have a wide range of uses, from emailing and web browsing to video viewing and reading e-books.
“If there’s going to be a third category it has to be better at these tasks, otherwise it has no reason for being,” Mr. Jobs said.
Anticipation for the iPad was particularly high given Apple’s huge success with the iPhone, which has caused a revolution in the smartphone industry and left big companies like Nokia and Microsoft struggling to catch up.
Mr. Job, who was still looking thin after a fight with cancer that included a liver transplant, triumphantly challenged the world’s biggest mobile technology companies, declaring that Apple’s total revenue from mobile gear – including its iPod and iPhone lines – now exceeded that of world mobile leader Nokia.
“We’re a mobile company. That’s what we do,” he said.
on 27 January 2010, 11:21
by Lalee Sadighi
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HDMI Growth Surges, Reaches 1 Billion Devices
Growth spurred by PCs, gaming consoles, personal media players, digital cameras and more.
By the end of 2009 there were more than 1 billion HDMI devices sold and installed, according to In-Stat.
HDMI Concerns
Overall, has HDMI been good for the custom industry? Good for consumers? Are there concerns about HDMI 1.4 out there? What are you doing about HDMI and 3D given the news…
Although the transition to HDMI hasn’t been smooth for many integrators, the number of components including an HDMI connection is growing at a fast rate.
By the end of 2009, there were more than 1 billion devices with HDMI sold and installed, according to In-Stat.
In-Stat says HDMI will have 100 percent adoption among manufacturers in the following categories in the following years:
Digital TVs (2009)
Blu-ray Players (2010)
All DVD Players (2012)
“The growth of HDMI adoption in components is not being driven by televisions, or home theaters,” says Jeff Park, technology evangelist for HDMI Licensing LLC. “The growth is really being fueled by non-home theater devices … things like digital still cameras, digital video cameras, portable media players, and even mobile phones."
Park says more devices will continue to produce high-def content and will require HDMI. “What this means is that, going forward, HDMI is going to be everywhere," he says. "It is not going to be avoidable."
By Jason Knott
January 18, 2010
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By the end of 2009 there were more than 1 billion HDMI devices sold and installed, according to In-Stat.
HDMI Concerns
Overall, has HDMI been good for the custom industry? Good for consumers? Are there concerns about HDMI 1.4 out there? What are you doing about HDMI and 3D given the news…
Although the transition to HDMI hasn’t been smooth for many integrators, the number of components including an HDMI connection is growing at a fast rate.
By the end of 2009, there were more than 1 billion devices with HDMI sold and installed, according to In-Stat.
In-Stat says HDMI will have 100 percent adoption among manufacturers in the following categories in the following years:
Digital TVs (2009)
Blu-ray Players (2010)
All DVD Players (2012)
“The growth of HDMI adoption in components is not being driven by televisions, or home theaters,” says Jeff Park, technology evangelist for HDMI Licensing LLC. “The growth is really being fueled by non-home theater devices … things like digital still cameras, digital video cameras, portable media players, and even mobile phones."
Park says more devices will continue to produce high-def content and will require HDMI. “What this means is that, going forward, HDMI is going to be everywhere," he says. "It is not going to be avoidable."
By Jason Knott
January 18, 2010
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When is High Speed HDMI Required?
HDMI Licensing identifies four types of cables and outlines when each is necessary for 1080p.
By Jason Knott
January 26, 2010
In an attempt to minimize confusion surrounding HDMI 1.4, HDMI Licensing LLC has created a four-category labeling system. There previously were only two types of HDMI cables:
Standard HDMI Cable: Supports up to 720p/1080i up to bandwidth of 2.25Gbps.
High Speed HDMI Cable: Supports 1080p or higher, including 3D or 4k/2k, up to bandwidth of 10.2Gbps.
With the introduction of HDMI 1.4, there are two new cables:
Standard HDMI Cable with Ethernet: Supports up to 720p/1080i supporting up to a total uncompressed bandwidth of 2.25Gbps. Adds support for HDMI Ethernet Channel (up to 100Mbps).
High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet: Supports 1080p or higher up to an uncompressed bandwidth of 10.2Gbps. Adds support for HDMI Ethernet Channel (up to 100Mbps).
Only home theaters with Internet connections will require an HDMI cable with Ethernet. All other existing cables will support the remaining features of HDMI 1.4.
"With HDMI 1.4, only the Ethernet Channel requires a new upgraded cable," reiterates Jeff Park, technology evangelist for HDMI Licensing LLC. "That is only exception that requires a new cable."
Below is a chart of all the possible features of HDMI and what cables are required for each feature. When a homeowner is watching TV (or a projector) in any format below 1080p, there are only two instances when he will need a High Speed Cable:
Deep Color
120Hz from the source
In both of these cases, if the homeowner is viewing 720p or 1080i content, a High Speed Cable is necessary because those features require almost double the bandwidth of standard definition.
Finally, 120Hz from the source is very different from the 120Hz or 240Hz achieved through upscaling built into the TV. All TVs manufactured today upscale the signal inside the display. If the signal is being upscaled, having a High Speed Cable will not make a difference.
By Jason Knott
January 26, 2010
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By Jason Knott
January 26, 2010
In an attempt to minimize confusion surrounding HDMI 1.4, HDMI Licensing LLC has created a four-category labeling system. There previously were only two types of HDMI cables:
Standard HDMI Cable: Supports up to 720p/1080i up to bandwidth of 2.25Gbps.
High Speed HDMI Cable: Supports 1080p or higher, including 3D or 4k/2k, up to bandwidth of 10.2Gbps.
With the introduction of HDMI 1.4, there are two new cables:
Standard HDMI Cable with Ethernet: Supports up to 720p/1080i supporting up to a total uncompressed bandwidth of 2.25Gbps. Adds support for HDMI Ethernet Channel (up to 100Mbps).
High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet: Supports 1080p or higher up to an uncompressed bandwidth of 10.2Gbps. Adds support for HDMI Ethernet Channel (up to 100Mbps).
Only home theaters with Internet connections will require an HDMI cable with Ethernet. All other existing cables will support the remaining features of HDMI 1.4.
"With HDMI 1.4, only the Ethernet Channel requires a new upgraded cable," reiterates Jeff Park, technology evangelist for HDMI Licensing LLC. "That is only exception that requires a new cable."
Below is a chart of all the possible features of HDMI and what cables are required for each feature. When a homeowner is watching TV (or a projector) in any format below 1080p, there are only two instances when he will need a High Speed Cable:
Deep Color
120Hz from the source
In both of these cases, if the homeowner is viewing 720p or 1080i content, a High Speed Cable is necessary because those features require almost double the bandwidth of standard definition.
Finally, 120Hz from the source is very different from the 120Hz or 240Hz achieved through upscaling built into the TV. All TVs manufactured today upscale the signal inside the display. If the signal is being upscaled, having a High Speed Cable will not make a difference.
By Jason Knott
January 26, 2010
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Original Article Here
"We definitely plan to launch IPTV in other cities this year"
For the first of our pre-event interviews with speakers confirmed to attend the IPTV World Forum, taking place in London this March, we speak to Andrey Kholodnyy, Head of VAS Department within Residential Marketing at Russian telco VimpelCom, which operates the IPTV service 'Beeline TV'.
Mr. Kholodny joined VimpelCom in 2008. He currently manages the development of broadband products (broadband Internet, home telephony, IPTV and bundles of FTTB-based, as well as Beeline mobile services) and coordinates non-FTTB related services (SIP-based IM, femto-cells). Mr. Kholodny previously worked at Golden Telecom, part of the VimpelCom Group, being responsible for consumer product development, including wireless and wireline broadband Internet and Voice. VimpelCom currently has over 30,000 subscribers for Beeline TV
The last time we spoke, in September of last year, you mentioned that Beeline is constructing an IPTV platform in St. Petersburg, and is also considering expanding Beeline TV into other cities as well. How are these plans progressing?
AK: We launched Beeline TV in St. Petersburg on December 15th of last year, and we have already accumulated some good sales there. We definitely plan to launch IPTV in other cities this year - however, we are still in the tender process for equipment, so I am not sure yet of the timeline for these.
Last September you mentioned that you hoped to add new HD content and IP-enabled services to the platform this year. Have there been any developments on this?
We are now finalising our new high-definition offer, which will be available in the next few months. We plan to seriously increase the amount of HD content available on our network this year.
In terms of new IP-enabled services and features, we launched our first Web application at the end of last year, developed in partnership with Russian portal Yandex, which delivers updates on currency rates, traffic jams, and weather outlooks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We also launched an interactive quiz service. And for the first time we formed a partnership with Travel Channel in which customers could take part in an interactive quiz and answer the questions using their remote control, with first prize being a trip in a hot air balloon.
We have also launched a new content recommendation engine, which analyses a subscriber's viewing history and suggests new titles they might be interested in watching. It also automatically records shows which the customer might be interested in viewing onto the set-top box hard drive, without prompting.
One of the big challenges you named for developing Beeline TV in Russia was the low penetration of pay-TV services in the country. What is your strategy for educating consumers of the benefits of IPTV?
Our goal is to educate the market on the benefits of IPTV, and for this we have appointed the agency Adventa to promote the service's features such as time-shifting within TV adverts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This year we will also continue to advertise the service in the press, and particularly in magazines. We also plan to continue offering new customers a free trial of the service, enabling them to try it out before committing themselves to a contract.
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Mr. Kholodny joined VimpelCom in 2008. He currently manages the development of broadband products (broadband Internet, home telephony, IPTV and bundles of FTTB-based, as well as Beeline mobile services) and coordinates non-FTTB related services (SIP-based IM, femto-cells). Mr. Kholodny previously worked at Golden Telecom, part of the VimpelCom Group, being responsible for consumer product development, including wireless and wireline broadband Internet and Voice. VimpelCom currently has over 30,000 subscribers for Beeline TV
The last time we spoke, in September of last year, you mentioned that Beeline is constructing an IPTV platform in St. Petersburg, and is also considering expanding Beeline TV into other cities as well. How are these plans progressing?
AK: We launched Beeline TV in St. Petersburg on December 15th of last year, and we have already accumulated some good sales there. We definitely plan to launch IPTV in other cities this year - however, we are still in the tender process for equipment, so I am not sure yet of the timeline for these.
Last September you mentioned that you hoped to add new HD content and IP-enabled services to the platform this year. Have there been any developments on this?
We are now finalising our new high-definition offer, which will be available in the next few months. We plan to seriously increase the amount of HD content available on our network this year.
In terms of new IP-enabled services and features, we launched our first Web application at the end of last year, developed in partnership with Russian portal Yandex, which delivers updates on currency rates, traffic jams, and weather outlooks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We also launched an interactive quiz service. And for the first time we formed a partnership with Travel Channel in which customers could take part in an interactive quiz and answer the questions using their remote control, with first prize being a trip in a hot air balloon.
We have also launched a new content recommendation engine, which analyses a subscriber's viewing history and suggests new titles they might be interested in watching. It also automatically records shows which the customer might be interested in viewing onto the set-top box hard drive, without prompting.
One of the big challenges you named for developing Beeline TV in Russia was the low penetration of pay-TV services in the country. What is your strategy for educating consumers of the benefits of IPTV?
Our goal is to educate the market on the benefits of IPTV, and for this we have appointed the agency Adventa to promote the service's features such as time-shifting within TV adverts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This year we will also continue to advertise the service in the press, and particularly in magazines. We also plan to continue offering new customers a free trial of the service, enabling them to try it out before committing themselves to a contract.
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Broadcast quality control in the IPTV world
Quality control is becoming more important than ever in television (writes Steve Nunney, Managing Director of Hamlet, a UK provider of measurement and monitoring equipment to the television broadcast industry worldwide). Audiences care about technical quality, and notice failures. They are watching on larger screens than before, and these magnify any failings. Ideally, they would like HD content on their HD-ready screens.
This is a particular problem for IPTV operators, for a number of reasons. First, there is the pure technical reason that bandwidth is precious, and the temptation to increase compression ratios to save bitrate is strong. But the lower the bitrate the more artefacts will be visible.
Second, in general viewers will have to be tempted to take an IPTV service, and will already have experience of the sort of quality available on terrestrial, cable and satellite services. If IPTV offers a noticeably worse quality of service they are likely to reject it immediately, leading to high levels of churn.
Third, because they are switchers, they are more likely to complain. So while consistently limited quality will lead to churn, short-term quality problems will lead to heavy loads on the call centre. In turn this will be unlikely to be able either to help with the issues or give a convincing answer, which again leads to customer dissatisfaction and ultimately to the loss of a subscription.
So it is clearly important for IPTV operators to keep track of the technical quality of the output. What does this mean in practice?
The impact of compression
There are, in effect, two sorts of services within IPTV: the pass-through of linear channels, and video on demand and other interactive content. Each need a slightly different quality regime.
One could argue that the IPTV service is simply the carrier for channels produced by broadcasters elsewhere, and indeed it is reasonable to expect that professional broadcast playout centres will deliver a seamless, technically accurate feed. The problem comes with compression and the fact that, while bandwidth is a cost for all delivery platforms, for IPTV the sheer practicalities of the infrastructure mean that you have to keep bitrates down.
While we are still using ADSL, the lower the bitrate the further it will reach from the DSlam, and so the more subscribers will be able to receive a stable service. And when VDSL or fibre to the home become a reality, the pressure will be for more services not for a bigger bit budget for the existing limited offering.
The compression engine for each channel may be located at the broadcaster or at your premises, or you may get a higher bitrate general feed from the broadcaster which you transcode to your output standard. Whatever the route, it is important to know what that compression is doing to the signal. You have to monitor the impact of the compression, and use that to build up a clear understanding of what you can and cannot do; what your subscribers will and will not tolerate.
So you should be comparing the signal before and after your delivery compression. Which sounds reasonable, until you consider that you may have tens or hundreds of services in your offering. Watching each one for artefacts is not a practical proposition.
The solution is an automated quality control monitoring system. This usually comes in the form of specialised software which runs on a standard PC, and is capable of checking a whole range of video, audio and metadata parameters in real time. As it finds errors – excursions outside the limits you have set as acceptable for your subscribers – it will write them to a log. Serious errors can be acted on immediately. Complaints to the call centre can be reconciled against the log to determine whether there was a real quality of service issue, and you can use this knowledge to fine tune your operating practices.
If you are handling your own compression or transcoding, you can compare before and after to see precisely what impact it is having on the signal. Again, this is vital information to set the balance between perceived quality and bit budget. It also enables you to track when the fault is with the broadcaster, to see if their feed is maintained consistently to the standard you expect.
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Original Article Here
This is a particular problem for IPTV operators, for a number of reasons. First, there is the pure technical reason that bandwidth is precious, and the temptation to increase compression ratios to save bitrate is strong. But the lower the bitrate the more artefacts will be visible.
Second, in general viewers will have to be tempted to take an IPTV service, and will already have experience of the sort of quality available on terrestrial, cable and satellite services. If IPTV offers a noticeably worse quality of service they are likely to reject it immediately, leading to high levels of churn.
Third, because they are switchers, they are more likely to complain. So while consistently limited quality will lead to churn, short-term quality problems will lead to heavy loads on the call centre. In turn this will be unlikely to be able either to help with the issues or give a convincing answer, which again leads to customer dissatisfaction and ultimately to the loss of a subscription.
So it is clearly important for IPTV operators to keep track of the technical quality of the output. What does this mean in practice?
The impact of compression
There are, in effect, two sorts of services within IPTV: the pass-through of linear channels, and video on demand and other interactive content. Each need a slightly different quality regime.
One could argue that the IPTV service is simply the carrier for channels produced by broadcasters elsewhere, and indeed it is reasonable to expect that professional broadcast playout centres will deliver a seamless, technically accurate feed. The problem comes with compression and the fact that, while bandwidth is a cost for all delivery platforms, for IPTV the sheer practicalities of the infrastructure mean that you have to keep bitrates down.
While we are still using ADSL, the lower the bitrate the further it will reach from the DSlam, and so the more subscribers will be able to receive a stable service. And when VDSL or fibre to the home become a reality, the pressure will be for more services not for a bigger bit budget for the existing limited offering.
The compression engine for each channel may be located at the broadcaster or at your premises, or you may get a higher bitrate general feed from the broadcaster which you transcode to your output standard. Whatever the route, it is important to know what that compression is doing to the signal. You have to monitor the impact of the compression, and use that to build up a clear understanding of what you can and cannot do; what your subscribers will and will not tolerate.
So you should be comparing the signal before and after your delivery compression. Which sounds reasonable, until you consider that you may have tens or hundreds of services in your offering. Watching each one for artefacts is not a practical proposition.
The solution is an automated quality control monitoring system. This usually comes in the form of specialised software which runs on a standard PC, and is capable of checking a whole range of video, audio and metadata parameters in real time. As it finds errors – excursions outside the limits you have set as acceptable for your subscribers – it will write them to a log. Serious errors can be acted on immediately. Complaints to the call centre can be reconciled against the log to determine whether there was a real quality of service issue, and you can use this knowledge to fine tune your operating practices.
If you are handling your own compression or transcoding, you can compare before and after to see precisely what impact it is having on the signal. Again, this is vital information to set the balance between perceived quality and bit budget. It also enables you to track when the fault is with the broadcaster, to see if their feed is maintained consistently to the standard you expect.
Quick, Custom & Proprietary Products (Connectors, Cable & Wire harness) ask FREE sample telCade.com
Original Article Here
Mobile Apps Revenue Near $30B in 2013
Worldwide revenue from the purchase of downloaded mobile applications is forecast to surge 47 percent in 2010 from last year, according to a report.
Mobile consumers are expected to spend $6.2 billion in 2010 at mobile applications stores compared with $4.2 million in 2009. Revenue for the wildly popular mobile application market, including advertising, is expected to skyrocket to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013, according to the report from researcher Gartner.
“Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner.
Another bright spot is the burgeoning mobile ad market, expected to reach $600 million worldwide in 2010, according to the researcher. That could explain Google's move in November to acquire Accel-backed ad network AdMob for $750 million and Apple's subsequent purchase of Quattro Wireless for an estimated $270 million.
By end of 2013, Gartner expects that among the $29.5 billion in mobile revenue 25 percent will be coming from ad-supported free applications. Gartner is predicting that downloads from mobile application will surpass 21.6 billion by 2013 compared with 2.5 billion in 2009.
Of the 4.5 billion mobile application downloads forecast for 2010, the research firm said 8 out of 10 would be free applications.
on 18 January 2010, 13:46
by Red Herring Staff
Original Article Here
Mobile consumers are expected to spend $6.2 billion in 2010 at mobile applications stores compared with $4.2 million in 2009. Revenue for the wildly popular mobile application market, including advertising, is expected to skyrocket to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013, according to the report from researcher Gartner.
“Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner.
Another bright spot is the burgeoning mobile ad market, expected to reach $600 million worldwide in 2010, according to the researcher. That could explain Google's move in November to acquire Accel-backed ad network AdMob for $750 million and Apple's subsequent purchase of Quattro Wireless for an estimated $270 million.
By end of 2013, Gartner expects that among the $29.5 billion in mobile revenue 25 percent will be coming from ad-supported free applications. Gartner is predicting that downloads from mobile application will surpass 21.6 billion by 2013 compared with 2.5 billion in 2009.
Of the 4.5 billion mobile application downloads forecast for 2010, the research firm said 8 out of 10 would be free applications.
on 18 January 2010, 13:46
by Red Herring Staff
Original Article Here
Jan 26, 2010
"The time is right for IPTV"
IPTV has been a buzzword for close to ten years now (writes Ron Levin, Associate VP of Product Marketing, Network Solutions Division at ECI Telecom). While deployments are happening around the world, to a degree, the “explosion” has not yet taken place. There may never be a better time to deploy IPTV, as TV networks switch from analogue to digital and from standard to high definition.
TV consumers worldwide who are migrating to new hardware are the ideal targets for IPTV-based services. These consumers will see a level of convenience and personalisation in IPTV that cannot be delivered otherwise. For operators that provide a good quality of experience IPTV will bring customer loyalty - crucial at a time of increasing churn - by offering a more enjoyable and interactive user experience. Looking to the future, IPTV will be the catalyst for rolling out high-speed broadband technologies such as FTTx, which then create the possibility of offering additional bandwidth-hungry applications.
IPTV is complex, however, and is a major investment. Success, defined as an attractive, problem-free service that delivers ROI in a realistic timeframe, will only come if the project is planned and executed properly, with a networking partner experienced in deploying large IPTV networks. And still, all challenges considered, IPTV is too important an opportunity to miss.
IPTV: why now?
Upheaval is taking place in the video/TV industry. Both the creation and distribution of content are changing quickly. On the creation side, barriers to entry for alternative content producers are negligible, as broadcast-quality video production equipment has become affordable for almost anyone. Amateurs recording local community events such as sports or school graduation ceremonies, can now create summary programs from their hours of video, align separate audio and video tracks from different devices and add video effects such as fades from one camera or scene to another. As a result, the availability of good quality user-generated content is increasing fast. With additional bandwidth and lower costs, there is opportunity to offer these narrowcast programs that would not previously have been economically viable.
On the distribution side, technologies that have lasted decades are being replaced. Terrestrial broadcasters are migrating to digital only, while newer alternatives are also supplanting videotape. As new, all-digital networks introduce high-definition broadcasts, the Blu-Ray standard is incorporated into newer DVDs, and the standard HDMI connector is used on newer equipment, consumers are enjoying the image quality improvement that we last saw when colour TV appeared.
Consumption patterns are changing, too. Social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube are becoming more important information channels. People who watch video clips on such sites do so often from handheld devices, which have specific form factor issues.
Consumers must upgrade CPE
Consumers are now being forced to upgrade to new display and delivery equipment, thanks to the analogue phase out. As they upgrade, they have no reason to stick with their current content delivery system(s) and service providers. Consumers are primarily interested in pricing, service and content availability and quality, rather than the delivery mechanism. It’s trite, but true, to say that consumers care about content not technology.
The introduction of all-digital HDTV means consumers will have to upgrade all video equipment, including the set-top boxes (STBs) that deliver the content from different sources. They also need to change subscription packages to receive an HD service. Consumers are likely to look at well-marketed alternative video delivery and consumption methods. IPTV can offer unique attractions to such consumers.
The bandwidth advantage
One critical advantage that IPTV presents, compared to other delivery mechanisms such as cable and satellite, is its ability to gracefully handle bandwidth increases. IPTV delivery is also not affected by changes in media type from xDSL to WiMAX to various forms of fibre.
Modern IPTV deployments use standard IP networking protocols on an Ethernet MAC layer. Because such networks do not require encapsulation and are essentially asynchronous, they handle bandwidth oversubscription gracefully and make it simple to upgrade overloaded links when required. Furthermore, IPTV is cost effective. The use of standard mature protocols allows the reuse of chipsets and stacks developed for other applications. This reduces the requirement to recoup development costs in the product price.
TV consumers worldwide who are migrating to new hardware are the ideal targets for IPTV-based services. These consumers will see a level of convenience and personalisation in IPTV that cannot be delivered otherwise. For operators that provide a good quality of experience IPTV will bring customer loyalty - crucial at a time of increasing churn - by offering a more enjoyable and interactive user experience. Looking to the future, IPTV will be the catalyst for rolling out high-speed broadband technologies such as FTTx, which then create the possibility of offering additional bandwidth-hungry applications.
IPTV is complex, however, and is a major investment. Success, defined as an attractive, problem-free service that delivers ROI in a realistic timeframe, will only come if the project is planned and executed properly, with a networking partner experienced in deploying large IPTV networks. And still, all challenges considered, IPTV is too important an opportunity to miss.
IPTV: why now?
Upheaval is taking place in the video/TV industry. Both the creation and distribution of content are changing quickly. On the creation side, barriers to entry for alternative content producers are negligible, as broadcast-quality video production equipment has become affordable for almost anyone. Amateurs recording local community events such as sports or school graduation ceremonies, can now create summary programs from their hours of video, align separate audio and video tracks from different devices and add video effects such as fades from one camera or scene to another. As a result, the availability of good quality user-generated content is increasing fast. With additional bandwidth and lower costs, there is opportunity to offer these narrowcast programs that would not previously have been economically viable.
On the distribution side, technologies that have lasted decades are being replaced. Terrestrial broadcasters are migrating to digital only, while newer alternatives are also supplanting videotape. As new, all-digital networks introduce high-definition broadcasts, the Blu-Ray standard is incorporated into newer DVDs, and the standard HDMI connector is used on newer equipment, consumers are enjoying the image quality improvement that we last saw when colour TV appeared.
Consumption patterns are changing, too. Social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube are becoming more important information channels. People who watch video clips on such sites do so often from handheld devices, which have specific form factor issues.
Consumers must upgrade CPE
Consumers are now being forced to upgrade to new display and delivery equipment, thanks to the analogue phase out. As they upgrade, they have no reason to stick with their current content delivery system(s) and service providers. Consumers are primarily interested in pricing, service and content availability and quality, rather than the delivery mechanism. It’s trite, but true, to say that consumers care about content not technology.
The introduction of all-digital HDTV means consumers will have to upgrade all video equipment, including the set-top boxes (STBs) that deliver the content from different sources. They also need to change subscription packages to receive an HD service. Consumers are likely to look at well-marketed alternative video delivery and consumption methods. IPTV can offer unique attractions to such consumers.
The bandwidth advantage
One critical advantage that IPTV presents, compared to other delivery mechanisms such as cable and satellite, is its ability to gracefully handle bandwidth increases. IPTV delivery is also not affected by changes in media type from xDSL to WiMAX to various forms of fibre.
Modern IPTV deployments use standard IP networking protocols on an Ethernet MAC layer. Because such networks do not require encapsulation and are essentially asynchronous, they handle bandwidth oversubscription gracefully and make it simple to upgrade overloaded links when required. Furthermore, IPTV is cost effective. The use of standard mature protocols allows the reuse of chipsets and stacks developed for other applications. This reduces the requirement to recoup development costs in the product price.
Lastly, IPTV offers the ideal way for fixed-line operators to protect future revenues from competitors unable to offer the same bandwidth. In the past, subscribers were willing to stick with their network operator because of the quality and reliability of voice service offered. Currently, these voice revenues are declining due to competition from mobile, VoIP and MSOs. Operators thus have an incentive to look for another source of revenue. As video places large demands on bandwidth, the only way to deliver a high-quality personalised experience over a large screen is via a dedicated terrestrial link. IPTV provides a way for operators to develop future business as other offerings decline in value.
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AGRICULTURE SECRETARY VILSACK ANNOUNCES $310 MILLION IN RECOVERY ACT FUNDS FOR RURAL BROADBAND PROJECTS
In total, $313.5 million for Middle Mile and Last Mile Projects Will Bring Broadband Service To Rural Customers
WASHINGTON, January 25, 2010 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of fourteen Recovery Act Broadband Infrastructure projects that will receive $309,923,352 through funding made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. An additional $3,551,887 in private investment brings the total to $313,475,239. Altogether, Congress awarded USDA $2.5 billion in Recovery Act funding to help bring broadband services to rural un-served and underserved communities.
"The Obama Administration will strengthen communities in rural areas through these broadband investments and provide employment opportunities, building a solid foundation for future economic growth," Vilsack said. "The awards for these broadband projects will support anchor institutions – such as libraries, public buildings and community centers – that are necessary for the viability of rural communities."
In rural Burleigh County, N.D., for example, the BEK Communications Cooperative has been selected to receive a $2 million grant and $2 million loan with an additional $2 million in leveraged funds. The company will expand the existing system to offer fiber-to-the-premises service to more than 540 homes and anchor institutions that are currently underserved. The existing system provides service to 53 percent of the population in the area, and among the current users, 22 percent derive household income from the Internet. This expansion is expected to stimulate economic growth by bringing on new users.
Funding of individual recipients is contingent upon their meeting the terms of the loan, grant or loan/grant agreement. Below is a complete list of recent Recovery Act Broadband award recipients by state:
Alaska
Southwestern Alaska, United Utilities, $43,982,240 grant and $44,158,522 loan. The funding will provide middle mile connectivity to 65 communities.
Alabama
Butler, Butler Telephone Co., Inc., $3,892,920 grant. The funding will provide high speed DSL broadband service to remote, unserved households within its rural service territory. The system is being built so that it can be easily upgraded to accommodate future services.
California
San Joaquin, Tranquillity, and Fresno, Audeamus, $2,741,505 grant and $2,741,505 loan. The proposed project is a fiber-based broadband infrastructure for the unserved and underserved communities in this service area. A last-mile project, it will provide access to approximately 1,500 households, local businesses and anchor institutions in the communities.
Iowa
Meriden and Archer, C-M-L Telephone Cooperative Association, $1,519,225 grant and $1,519,225 loan, $1,525,315 in matching funds. Funding will provide services via a fiber optic network to rural communities with high speed internet exceeding 20 Mbps.
Bennett, Delmar, and Lowden, F & B Communications, Inc., $1,609,162 grant and
$1,628,588 loan. Funding will provide services via high speed fiber optic network with speeds exceeding 20Mbps. System will allow for expansion at a future date.
Springbrook, LaMotte Telephone Company, $187,815 grant, and $187,815 loan. The funding will provide services from a 300-foot tower and Wi-Max installation for wireless broadband service in the surrounding area.
Kansas (1% of the network is to be built in Nebraska)
Western Kansas, Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., $49,588,807 grant and $51,612,842 loan. Funding will provide service in an area 99.5 percent unserved/underserved and provide a rural infrastructure required for economic stability, education and healthcare. The company is a cooperative and RUS partner on 32 other projects. It leads a team of seven companies with this shovel-ready project.
Tennessee (1% of the network is to be built in Kentucky)
Northern Tennessee, North Central Telephone Cooperative, Inc., $24,715,709 grant and $24,964,000 loan. The funding will provide the necessary infrastructure to provide advanced voice, video, and data services that exceed 20Mbps to remote and rural communities in the service area.
Louisiana
Morehouse Parish, Northeast Louisiana Telephone Company, Inc., $4,359,000 grant and $8,124,600 loan. Funding will provide an active Ethernet system with symmetrical speeds of 20 Mbps. The system will be using buried fiber to the premise.
Missouri
Ralls County, Ralls County Electric Cooperative, $9,548,908 grant and $9,548,909 loan. Funding for this project will provide a fiber optic network to residential and commercial members and the underserved safety and anchor agencies in the service area. This is a State of Missouri demonstration project and non-proprietary data will be shared.
North Dakota
Burleigh County; BEK Communications Cooperative, $1,986,473 grant and $2,016,571 loan; $2,016,572 in leveraged funds. The funding will provide fiber-to-the-premises broadband service to underserved homes and anchor institutions. This will aid business growth and support public safety in rural areas highly dependent on Internet business income.
Traill County; Halstad Telephone Company, $2,027,600 grant and $2,027,600 loan; $10,000 in leveraged funds. The funding will provide fiber-to-the premises broadband service to unserved homes and businesses in Traill County.
Oregon
Marion County, Gervais telephone Company, $314,430 grant and $314,430 loan. This project extends Gervais Telephone Company's existing fiber network by building out from the nearest fiber splice point through the funded service area. This project will provide broadband connectivity to residential and business end users, as well as to four anchor institutions.
Virginia
Alleghany County, NTELOS Telephone Inc., $8,062,088 grant and $8,062,088 loan. The funds will provide broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved homes, businesses and critical community institutions in this rural county. A fiber-based project, it will enable work-from-home jobs and foster economic development, and improve health, education and public safety services to the county citizens.
President Obama signed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law on Feb. 17, 2009. It is designed to jumpstart the nation's economy, create or save millions of jobs and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century. The Act includes measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, enhance energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need.
More information about USDA's Recovery Act efforts is available at www.usda.gov/recovery . More information about the Federal government's efforts on the Recovery Act is available at www.recovery.gov .
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
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Original Article Here
Standardisation will be "key" to progress for next-gen access
Decisions which are to be made in the next few months regarding Next-Generation Access (NGA) infrastructure in the UK will be "fundamental" to the development of broadband in the UK over the next 20 years, according to a new report from Point Topic.
In combination with an upcoming election where super-fast broadband and its funding is expected to become a political football, this is described as potentially being "another crossroads" for the Digital Britain initiative. Point Topic comments that core to the reach and uptake of NGA services will be the return which suppliers can make on their investment, and the tariffs which end-users are charged
“Products for NGA are too important to be left to the network operators,” said Annelise Berendt, NGA analyst at Point Topic. “There are too many challenges to leave it to lots of individual players, each doing their own thing. On the other hand, if we left the whole product set to be defined by BT that would really limit competition.”
The report goes on to say that several issues need to be resolved to strike a balance, including: how to encourage competition in next-generation broadband provision, while maintaining the financial and economic viability of investment in infrastructure; the balance to be made between active and passive wholesale products, given the "more limited scope" for innovation that active products entail; and how the industry can ensure that the growing variety of infrastructure providers does not translate into a patchwork of disparate products and interfaces, making mass-market deployment difficult to achieve.
“How the market is regulated is extremely important. Evidence shows that too much dependence on infrastructure competition, essentially wires to premises, leads to slow growth as in the UK in the 90s and the US today,” adds Ms. Berendt. “On the other hand, too much focus on service competition stifles investment in new networks. It’s a balancing act and we can’t rely on commercial organisations to follow policies which will maximise the benefits to society as a whole.”
In combination with an upcoming election where super-fast broadband and its funding is expected to become a political football, this is described as potentially being "another crossroads" for the Digital Britain initiative. Point Topic comments that core to the reach and uptake of NGA services will be the return which suppliers can make on their investment, and the tariffs which end-users are charged
“Products for NGA are too important to be left to the network operators,” said Annelise Berendt, NGA analyst at Point Topic. “There are too many challenges to leave it to lots of individual players, each doing their own thing. On the other hand, if we left the whole product set to be defined by BT that would really limit competition.”
The report goes on to say that several issues need to be resolved to strike a balance, including: how to encourage competition in next-generation broadband provision, while maintaining the financial and economic viability of investment in infrastructure; the balance to be made between active and passive wholesale products, given the "more limited scope" for innovation that active products entail; and how the industry can ensure that the growing variety of infrastructure providers does not translate into a patchwork of disparate products and interfaces, making mass-market deployment difficult to achieve.
“How the market is regulated is extremely important. Evidence shows that too much dependence on infrastructure competition, essentially wires to premises, leads to slow growth as in the UK in the 90s and the US today,” adds Ms. Berendt. “On the other hand, too much focus on service competition stifles investment in new networks. It’s a balancing act and we can’t rely on commercial organisations to follow policies which will maximise the benefits to society as a whole.”
Point Topic states that the glue to pull all of these potential products together and ease their implementation is standardisation - a standardised and coordinated approach is described as being "paramount" for the financial viability of NGA networks. “Ofcom in particular faces a significant challenge,” concludes Ms. Berendt. “It has to help new entrants to climb the investment ladder without compromising choice, without stifling competition, and without mortgaging the future of the UK’s newest utility."
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Worldwide IPTV homes to reach 70mn by end-2014
The number of homes receiving IPTV services worldwide will reach 70mn by the end of 2014, more than double the end-2009 total of 26mn, according to a new report from Informa Telecoms & Media, publisher of IPTV News.
Revenues are also expected to climb steeply from US$ 4.6bn in 2009 to US$ 12.2bn in 2014. However, only 5% of the world's TV households are expected to subscribe to IPTV platforms by 2014, with only 13 countries expected to have over 1mn IPTV subscribers. This fairly limited penetration is attributed to the need to migrate customers away from longer-established cable and DTH services, as well as the lesser impact of DTT.
There were an estimated 8mn IPTV subscribers added around the world in 2009, according to the report, with Asia-Pacific and Western Europe estimated to be responsible for 2.6mn and 2.4mn respectively of these additions, while North America is believed to have accounted for 1.1mn. However, this global figure currently represents just 2% of all TV households.
Much of the anticipated future growth is expected to occur in Asia-Pacific, which is expected to become the largest region in terms of IPTV subscribers by 2011, and contribute 28mn of the 70mn worldwide subscribers forecast by the end of 2014. China is expected to become the leading country, with 13.7mn subscribers, while Japan will be fourth with 5.4mn, and South Korea will rank sixth with 2.9mn.
The US is expected to lose its position at the top of the leaderboard (with 5.4mn subscribers at the end of last year), finishing second in 2014 with 9.2mn IPTV homes. France is expected to remain top of Europe's IPTV market, but growth is expected to slow in the coming years as IPTV has concentrated in urban areas, and the country will have an estimated 5.8mn IPTV homes by 2014, up from 4.8mn in 2009.
Hong Kong is expected to remain the top country for IPTV penetration of TV households through 2014, thanks largely to the inroads made by market leader PCCW, which has enjoyed rapid take-up thanks to its strategy of offering à la carte channel options and monthly (rather than annual) contracts. By the end of 2014, 41% of Hong Kong's TV households are expected to receive IPTV signals, although the growth is described as slowing. Slovenia is expected to remain in second place in terms of IPTV penetration, boasting a 30% penetration by the end of 2009, which is predicted to rise to 50% by 2014.
Revenues are also expected to climb steeply from US$ 4.6bn in 2009 to US$ 12.2bn in 2014. However, only 5% of the world's TV households are expected to subscribe to IPTV platforms by 2014, with only 13 countries expected to have over 1mn IPTV subscribers. This fairly limited penetration is attributed to the need to migrate customers away from longer-established cable and DTH services, as well as the lesser impact of DTT.
There were an estimated 8mn IPTV subscribers added around the world in 2009, according to the report, with Asia-Pacific and Western Europe estimated to be responsible for 2.6mn and 2.4mn respectively of these additions, while North America is believed to have accounted for 1.1mn. However, this global figure currently represents just 2% of all TV households.
Much of the anticipated future growth is expected to occur in Asia-Pacific, which is expected to become the largest region in terms of IPTV subscribers by 2011, and contribute 28mn of the 70mn worldwide subscribers forecast by the end of 2014. China is expected to become the leading country, with 13.7mn subscribers, while Japan will be fourth with 5.4mn, and South Korea will rank sixth with 2.9mn.
The US is expected to lose its position at the top of the leaderboard (with 5.4mn subscribers at the end of last year), finishing second in 2014 with 9.2mn IPTV homes. France is expected to remain top of Europe's IPTV market, but growth is expected to slow in the coming years as IPTV has concentrated in urban areas, and the country will have an estimated 5.8mn IPTV homes by 2014, up from 4.8mn in 2009.
Hong Kong is expected to remain the top country for IPTV penetration of TV households through 2014, thanks largely to the inroads made by market leader PCCW, which has enjoyed rapid take-up thanks to its strategy of offering à la carte channel options and monthly (rather than annual) contracts. By the end of 2014, 41% of Hong Kong's TV households are expected to receive IPTV signals, although the growth is described as slowing. Slovenia is expected to remain in second place in terms of IPTV penetration, boasting a 30% penetration by the end of 2009, which is predicted to rise to 50% by 2014.
By 2014, IPTV penetration will be above 10% of TV households in 17 countries around the world, according to the report, although 14 countries covered in the forecast will have an IPTV penetration of under 2%. Latin America is expected to record low rates, mainly due to the start of IPTV in the region.
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Jan 25, 2010
In Europe, VoIP Grows & Grows
Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, once famously said that voice was going to be free. She was wrong in ponying up billions of dollars for Skype, but she was right in her assertion about voice. Thanks to European broadband service providers treating voice as a loss leader to attract triple-play customers, local voice has become almost free in Europe, according to research conducted by Telegeography, a division of market research firm PriMetrica.
In 2008, VoIP represented 26 percent of total fixed lines in Europe but brought in only 10 percent of the total fixed-line revenues. I bet a big chunk of the VoIP-related revenues are coming from VoIP-to-mobile phone calls. Mobile calls are seriously expensive in Europe, and as a result, any attempts by mobile VoIP companies such as Truphone have been met with resistance by the carriers.
Telegeography estimates that there were more than 35 million European households with VoIP service in 2008. That’s up from just 1.9 million VoIP lines in service in Europe in 2004. Telegeography also estimates that, during every quarter of 2008, more than 2 million homes signed up for VoIP service. Just to give context, in the U.S., we had about 19.4 million VoIP subscribers at the end of 2008. In 2004, there were 1.2 million VoIP lines. Telegeography analysts estimate that Europe will continue to exceed U.S. growth in VoIP lines.
Household penetration of VoIP telephony at mid-year 2008 ranged from slightly less than 50 percent in France to less than 3 percent in Spain, and annual subscriber growth rates ranged from 544 percent in Portugal to a comparatively anemic 13 percent in Norway.
One of the main reasons why France is so far ahead of rest of Europe is because of the presence of a truly disruptive company: Iliad, which offers a flat rate triple rate service under the brand Free. (Related article: Xavier Niel, France’s Broadband Maverick). Free’s offering forced everyone — including incumbent France Telecom — to offer similar, simpler triple-play plans, resulting in increased VoIP penetration.
Other related posts: In Europe, they like their VoIP (2007), VoIP growing really really fast in Europe (2008.)
In 2008, VoIP represented 26 percent of total fixed lines in Europe but brought in only 10 percent of the total fixed-line revenues. I bet a big chunk of the VoIP-related revenues are coming from VoIP-to-mobile phone calls. Mobile calls are seriously expensive in Europe, and as a result, any attempts by mobile VoIP companies such as Truphone have been met with resistance by the carriers.
Telegeography estimates that there were more than 35 million European households with VoIP service in 2008. That’s up from just 1.9 million VoIP lines in service in Europe in 2004. Telegeography also estimates that, during every quarter of 2008, more than 2 million homes signed up for VoIP service. Just to give context, in the U.S., we had about 19.4 million VoIP subscribers at the end of 2008. In 2004, there were 1.2 million VoIP lines. Telegeography analysts estimate that Europe will continue to exceed U.S. growth in VoIP lines.
Household penetration of VoIP telephony at mid-year 2008 ranged from slightly less than 50 percent in France to less than 3 percent in Spain, and annual subscriber growth rates ranged from 544 percent in Portugal to a comparatively anemic 13 percent in Norway.
One of the main reasons why France is so far ahead of rest of Europe is because of the presence of a truly disruptive company: Iliad, which offers a flat rate triple rate service under the brand Free. (Related article: Xavier Niel, France’s Broadband Maverick). Free’s offering forced everyone — including incumbent France Telecom — to offer similar, simpler triple-play plans, resulting in increased VoIP penetration.
Other related posts: In Europe, they like their VoIP (2007), VoIP growing really really fast in Europe (2008.)
China Could be $1 Trillion Green Tech Market
Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
SHANGHAI (AP) -- China potentially could be a $500 billion to $1 trillion a year market for environmentally sustainable "green technologies," a group of businesses and experts said in a report Thursday that urges governments to ease the way for such initiatives.
The report by the China Greentech Initiative, a group of more than 80 leading technology companies, non-governmental organizations and policy advisers, pinpointed opportunities from 300 potential green technology options for China, spanning energy, water, buildings, transportation and industry.
But government support is key, said Richard Gledhill, global leader of Climate Change & Carbon Market Services in London for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy that helped head the research.
According to the U.S. International Energy Agency, holding climate change to just a 2 degrees Celsius increase over the next two decades will require $9 trillion in extra spending, he said.
"The private sector has a key role to play in delivering the required investment at the scale required to avoid dangerous climate change. But it will only do this if there is a clear, long-term policy framework to underpin prospects of a reasonable return," Gledhill said.
The project defined greentech as technologies, products and services that benefit users as much or more than conventional alternatives, while limiting the impact on the natural environment and promoting efficient and sustainable use of energy, water and other resources.
While such changes are needed worldwide, China's rapid growth and dizzyingly fast urbanization are contributing to a building boom that has created more than twice the floor space as in the U.S.
About 18 million people migrate from rural areas to the cities each year, so that by about 2050 China will have more than 200 cities with populations of more than 1 million people, the report said.
Such growth will require huge increases in use of energy, water and materials that will force China to adopt new, environmentally friendly technologies, it said. Both Chinese and foreign companies will find new opportunities, though they still face challenges, particularly in overcoming barriers to transfer of technologies and preventing piracy of intellectual property such as patents.
Wireless Design & Development
SHANGHAI (AP) -- China potentially could be a $500 billion to $1 trillion a year market for environmentally sustainable "green technologies," a group of businesses and experts said in a report Thursday that urges governments to ease the way for such initiatives.
The report by the China Greentech Initiative, a group of more than 80 leading technology companies, non-governmental organizations and policy advisers, pinpointed opportunities from 300 potential green technology options for China, spanning energy, water, buildings, transportation and industry.
But government support is key, said Richard Gledhill, global leader of Climate Change & Carbon Market Services in London for PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy that helped head the research.
According to the U.S. International Energy Agency, holding climate change to just a 2 degrees Celsius increase over the next two decades will require $9 trillion in extra spending, he said.
"The private sector has a key role to play in delivering the required investment at the scale required to avoid dangerous climate change. But it will only do this if there is a clear, long-term policy framework to underpin prospects of a reasonable return," Gledhill said.
The project defined greentech as technologies, products and services that benefit users as much or more than conventional alternatives, while limiting the impact on the natural environment and promoting efficient and sustainable use of energy, water and other resources.
While such changes are needed worldwide, China's rapid growth and dizzyingly fast urbanization are contributing to a building boom that has created more than twice the floor space as in the U.S.
About 18 million people migrate from rural areas to the cities each year, so that by about 2050 China will have more than 200 cities with populations of more than 1 million people, the report said.
Such growth will require huge increases in use of energy, water and materials that will force China to adopt new, environmentally friendly technologies, it said. Both Chinese and foreign companies will find new opportunities, though they still face challenges, particularly in overcoming barriers to transfer of technologies and preventing piracy of intellectual property such as patents.
Wireless Design & Development
© 2010 Advantage Business Media
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Original Article Here
Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Launched; Governing Board Elected
The inaugural meeting of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), a new stakeholder forum to provide technical support to the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as it coordinates standards for a modernized electric power system, concluded recently with election of 20 members to its governing board.
Established by NIST with the assistance of EnerNex, under a contact enabled by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the new consensus-driven organization provides an open process for businesses and other stakeholder groups to participate in coordinating and accelerating development of standards for the evolving Smart Grid.
Starting with an initial membership of more than 370 organizations spread among 22 stakeholder categories, the SGIP has three primary functions:
•Provide technical guidance to facilitate development of standards for a secure, interoperable Smart Grid; •Specify testing and certification requirements necessary to assess the interoperability Smart Grid-related equipment, software, and services; and •Oversee the performance of activities intended to expedite the development of interoperability and cyber security specifications by standards development organizations.
Launched on Monday, November 16, 2009, with the membership’s ratification of the charter and by-laws, the SGIP will help NIST continue accelerated efforts to carry out responsibilities assigned to the agency by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The act calls on NIST to “coordinate the development of a framework that includes protocols and model standards for information management to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems.”
NIST is now completing its Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0, which has undergone public review and comment. The SGIP will further strengthen this roadmapping effort in collaboration with NIST.
Wireless Design & Development
Established by NIST with the assistance of EnerNex, under a contact enabled by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the new consensus-driven organization provides an open process for businesses and other stakeholder groups to participate in coordinating and accelerating development of standards for the evolving Smart Grid.
Starting with an initial membership of more than 370 organizations spread among 22 stakeholder categories, the SGIP has three primary functions:
•Provide technical guidance to facilitate development of standards for a secure, interoperable Smart Grid; •Specify testing and certification requirements necessary to assess the interoperability Smart Grid-related equipment, software, and services; and •Oversee the performance of activities intended to expedite the development of interoperability and cyber security specifications by standards development organizations.
Launched on Monday, November 16, 2009, with the membership’s ratification of the charter and by-laws, the SGIP will help NIST continue accelerated efforts to carry out responsibilities assigned to the agency by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The act calls on NIST to “coordinate the development of a framework that includes protocols and model standards for information management to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems.”
NIST is now completing its Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0, which has undergone public review and comment. The SGIP will further strengthen this roadmapping effort in collaboration with NIST.
Wireless Design & Development
© 2010 Advantage Business Media
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Original Article Here
New Tech Tools Help Haiti Quake Relief
By Frank Bajak, AP Technology Writer
Hundreds of tech volunteers spurred to action by Haiti's killer quake are adding a new dimension to disaster relief, developing new tools and services for first responders and the public in an unprecedented effort.
"It really is amazing the change in the way crisis response can be done now," said Noel Dickover, a Washington, D.C.-based organizer of the CrisisCamp tech volunteer movement, which is central to the Haiti effort.
"Developers, crisis mappers and even Internet-savvy folks can actually make a difference." Volunteers have built and refined software for tracking missing people, mapping the disaster area and enabling urgent cell phone text messaging. Organizations including the International Red Cross, the United Nations, the World Bank and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency have put the systems to use.
Tim Schwartz, a 28-year-old artist and programmer in San Diego, feared upon learning of the disaster that, with an array of social-networking sites active, crucial information about Haitian quake victims would "go everywhere on the Internet and it would be very hard to actually find people — and get back to their loved ones," he said. So Schwartz quickly e-mailed "all the developers I'd ever worked with."
In a few hours, he and 10 others had built www.haitianquake.com, an online lost-and-found to help Haitians in and out of the country locate missing relatives.
The database, which anyone can update, was online less than 24 hours after the quake struck, with more than 6,000 entries because Schwartz and his colleagues wrote a "scraper" that gathered data from a Red Cross site.
The New York Times, Miami Herald, CNN and others launched similar efforts. And two days later, Google had a similar tool running, PersonFinder, that the State Department promoted on its own Web site and Twitter. PersonFinder grew out of missing-persons technology developed after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005.
Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, director of the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, advocated online for consolidating all such tools into the Google version so the information wouldn't be stuck in competing projects.
He considers PersonFinder, which can be embedded in any Web site and as of Tuesday had more than 32,000 records, a triumph because it "greatly increases the chances that Haitians in Haiti and abroad will be able to find each other."
Schwartz agreed and folded his database into PersonFinder, which he thinks will become "THE application for missing people for this disaster and all disasters in the future."
The site has received several hundred thousand visits, said Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo. She had no data on how many people had found loved ones using the tool.
Another volunteer project forged in the quake's aftermath is a cell phone text-messaging system that has helped the U.N., Red Cross and other relief groups dispatch rescuers, food and water. Haitians needing help can send free text messages from phones on the nation's Digicel and Comcel networks to the number 4636.
"At least 20 people so far have been able to use this program to tell their families in the U.S. that they're OK," said Katie Stanton, a former Google employee working in the State Department's Office of Innovation.
The text messages are translated, categorized and "geotagged" by volunteers including Haitian-American members of the New York City-based Service Employees International Union. The service is being promoted on Haitian radio stations and the service has handled more than 1,000 messages since it began Saturday, said Josh Nesbit, a co-creator. He put together a similar system for hospitals in Malawi, Africa, while at Stanford University.
In another collaborative effort, the OpenStreetMap "crisis mapping" project, volunteers layer up-to-the-minute data (such as the location of new field hospitals and downed bridges) onto post-quake satellite imagery that companies including GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have made freely available. The digital cartography — informed by everything from Twitter feeds to eyewitness reports — has helped aid workers speed food, water and medicine to where it's needed most.
Haitian Hurricane related sites on the Net include: Google's service: http://haiticrisis.appspot.com CrisisCamps: http://bit.ly/5OSSAL Mapping of text messages: http://haiti.ushahidi.com/main OpenStreetMap: http://bit.ly/67MDM9 U.S. State Department: http://tinyurl.com/y9pc77p A Haiti disaster response portal: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org
Wireless Design & Development
Hundreds of tech volunteers spurred to action by Haiti's killer quake are adding a new dimension to disaster relief, developing new tools and services for first responders and the public in an unprecedented effort.
"It really is amazing the change in the way crisis response can be done now," said Noel Dickover, a Washington, D.C.-based organizer of the CrisisCamp tech volunteer movement, which is central to the Haiti effort.
"Developers, crisis mappers and even Internet-savvy folks can actually make a difference." Volunteers have built and refined software for tracking missing people, mapping the disaster area and enabling urgent cell phone text messaging. Organizations including the International Red Cross, the United Nations, the World Bank and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency have put the systems to use.
Tim Schwartz, a 28-year-old artist and programmer in San Diego, feared upon learning of the disaster that, with an array of social-networking sites active, crucial information about Haitian quake victims would "go everywhere on the Internet and it would be very hard to actually find people — and get back to their loved ones," he said. So Schwartz quickly e-mailed "all the developers I'd ever worked with."
In a few hours, he and 10 others had built www.haitianquake.com, an online lost-and-found to help Haitians in and out of the country locate missing relatives.
The database, which anyone can update, was online less than 24 hours after the quake struck, with more than 6,000 entries because Schwartz and his colleagues wrote a "scraper" that gathered data from a Red Cross site.
The New York Times, Miami Herald, CNN and others launched similar efforts. And two days later, Google had a similar tool running, PersonFinder, that the State Department promoted on its own Web site and Twitter. PersonFinder grew out of missing-persons technology developed after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005.
Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, director of the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, advocated online for consolidating all such tools into the Google version so the information wouldn't be stuck in competing projects.
He considers PersonFinder, which can be embedded in any Web site and as of Tuesday had more than 32,000 records, a triumph because it "greatly increases the chances that Haitians in Haiti and abroad will be able to find each other."
Schwartz agreed and folded his database into PersonFinder, which he thinks will become "THE application for missing people for this disaster and all disasters in the future."
The site has received several hundred thousand visits, said Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo. She had no data on how many people had found loved ones using the tool.
Another volunteer project forged in the quake's aftermath is a cell phone text-messaging system that has helped the U.N., Red Cross and other relief groups dispatch rescuers, food and water. Haitians needing help can send free text messages from phones on the nation's Digicel and Comcel networks to the number 4636.
"At least 20 people so far have been able to use this program to tell their families in the U.S. that they're OK," said Katie Stanton, a former Google employee working in the State Department's Office of Innovation.
The text messages are translated, categorized and "geotagged" by volunteers including Haitian-American members of the New York City-based Service Employees International Union. The service is being promoted on Haitian radio stations and the service has handled more than 1,000 messages since it began Saturday, said Josh Nesbit, a co-creator. He put together a similar system for hospitals in Malawi, Africa, while at Stanford University.
In another collaborative effort, the OpenStreetMap "crisis mapping" project, volunteers layer up-to-the-minute data (such as the location of new field hospitals and downed bridges) onto post-quake satellite imagery that companies including GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have made freely available. The digital cartography — informed by everything from Twitter feeds to eyewitness reports — has helped aid workers speed food, water and medicine to where it's needed most.
Haitian Hurricane related sites on the Net include: Google's service: http://haiticrisis.appspot.com CrisisCamps: http://bit.ly/5OSSAL Mapping of text messages: http://haiti.ushahidi.com/main OpenStreetMap: http://bit.ly/67MDM9 U.S. State Department: http://tinyurl.com/y9pc77p A Haiti disaster response portal: http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org
Wireless Design & Development
© 2010 Advantage Business Media
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Original Article Here
400-Gbyte enterprise SSD features enhanced durability
The XceedIOPS SATA next-generation enterprise-class solid-state disk drive is offered with capacities of 25 to 400 Gbytes and either SLC or enterprise-grade multilevel cell (E-MLC) NAND technologies. The enterprise-grade MLC flash provides a big endurance improvement, with 20,000 P/E cycles, whereas current-generation commercial MLCs specify 1,500 or 5,000 P/E cycles.
The drive features an advanced SF-1500 processor from SandForce that yields up to 30-KIO/s random read/write, and 250-Mbyte/s sustained read/write speeds. The drive uses SATA 2.6, with NCQ, is available in 1.8- and 2.5-in. form factors, and takes 2.3 W during read/write and 0.6 W in idle. (Ea/OEM qty: 50-Gbyte E-MLC, $400; 200-Gbyte E-MLC, $1,300 — samples available now; prod qty, 2nd qtr.)
The drive features an advanced SF-1500 processor from SandForce that yields up to 30-KIO/s random read/write, and 250-Mbyte/s sustained read/write speeds. The drive uses SATA 2.6, with NCQ, is available in 1.8- and 2.5-in. form factors, and takes 2.3 W during read/write and 0.6 W in idle. (Ea/OEM qty: 50-Gbyte E-MLC, $400; 200-Gbyte E-MLC, $1,300 — samples available now; prod qty, 2nd qtr.)
Learn more about Smart Modular Technologies
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Google and Apple Spar in High-Tech Heavyweight Battle
By Michael Liedtke, AP Technology Writer
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- The once-cuddly relationship between Google Inc. and Apple Inc. is morphing into a prickly power struggle as the ambitions and ideas of the technology trendsetters increasingly collide.
The growing use of high-powered phones for Web surfing has become a flash point in the brewing battle because both Google and Apple view the mobile market as a key to their continued success in the next decade.
The rivalry also is spilling into other products, including Web browsers, computer operating systems and digital music.
The tensions rose further when Google unveiled its plans to sell its own cell phone in its latest bid to upstage Apple's hottest gadget, the iPhone.
Google is billing its phone, called the Nexus One, as a "super" phone — a device designed for people looking for something more advanced than the iPhone, Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and other devices that serve as pocket-sized computers.
The Nexus One "is the closest thing to an iPhone challenger that I have seen so far," said Gartner Inc. analyst Ken Dulaney. "It's a very good piece of hardware."
Meanwhile, Apple is taking a stab at Google's heart by expanding into advertising sales. Apple let it be known that it had bought a mobile advertising service, Quattro Wireless, just before Google held a news conference at its Mountain View headquarters to announce the Nexus One.
Quattro gives Apple its own platform for distributing ads on the iPhone, and conceivably could serve as a marketing vehicle for a computing tablet that Apple is expected to introduce near the end of the month. The acquisition also serves as a counterpunch to Google's proposed $750 million acquisition of Quattro rival AdMob, a deal that may be tied up in a regulatory review for several more months.
Apple, whose headquarters in Cupertino is less than 10 miles from Google's, didn't disclose Quattro's sales price, but the technology blog All Things Digital pegged it at $275 million.
Google hopes AdMob can help it become as dominant selling ads for mobile phones as it has been in placing ads on Internet-connected computer screens during the past six years. Most of Google's ads are tied to search requests on personal computers, a system that has propelled Google's annual revenue from $1.5 billion in 2003 to more than $22 billion in 2009.
Meanwhile, the iPhone has turned into a gold mine for Apple, with more than 30 million of the handsets sold in the past 2 1/2 years and demand still growing. It has helped boost Apple's annual revenue from $24 billion in fiscal year 2007 to $36.5 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended Sept. 26.
Google acknowledges it also has benefited from the additional traffic that the iPhone has brought to its search engine and other services. But the revenue that Google gets from the iPhone may diminish as the array of applications that consumers put on their handsets decreases the need to use search engines to find popular services, Broadpoint.AmTech analyst Benjamin Schachter said in a recent research note.
By designing and selling its own phone, Google will have another way to ensure its services remain within easy reach of people on the go.
A looming showdown between Google and Apple seemed improbable just a few years ago when they had a common disdain — and fear — of software maker Microsoft Corp. "Now I think Google might be more focused on Apple than Microsoft," said technology analyst Rob Enderle. Google and Apple also publicly fawned over each other's elegantly designed products.
The companies even shared personal ties, with Apple board members Bill Campbell and Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, serving as advisers to Google in its early days. The companies' kinship culminated in Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, joining Apple's board in 2006. Schmidt resigned as an Apple director five months ago, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs citing Google's expansion into "Apple's core businesses" as the main reason for the departure.
The Federal Trade Commission had been looking into whether Schmidt's dual roles on the boards of Google and Apple might stifle competition between the two companies. That now appears to be a dead issue.
Wireless Design & Development
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- The once-cuddly relationship between Google Inc. and Apple Inc. is morphing into a prickly power struggle as the ambitions and ideas of the technology trendsetters increasingly collide.
The growing use of high-powered phones for Web surfing has become a flash point in the brewing battle because both Google and Apple view the mobile market as a key to their continued success in the next decade.
The rivalry also is spilling into other products, including Web browsers, computer operating systems and digital music.
The tensions rose further when Google unveiled its plans to sell its own cell phone in its latest bid to upstage Apple's hottest gadget, the iPhone.
Google is billing its phone, called the Nexus One, as a "super" phone — a device designed for people looking for something more advanced than the iPhone, Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and other devices that serve as pocket-sized computers.
The Nexus One "is the closest thing to an iPhone challenger that I have seen so far," said Gartner Inc. analyst Ken Dulaney. "It's a very good piece of hardware."
Meanwhile, Apple is taking a stab at Google's heart by expanding into advertising sales. Apple let it be known that it had bought a mobile advertising service, Quattro Wireless, just before Google held a news conference at its Mountain View headquarters to announce the Nexus One.
Quattro gives Apple its own platform for distributing ads on the iPhone, and conceivably could serve as a marketing vehicle for a computing tablet that Apple is expected to introduce near the end of the month. The acquisition also serves as a counterpunch to Google's proposed $750 million acquisition of Quattro rival AdMob, a deal that may be tied up in a regulatory review for several more months.
Apple, whose headquarters in Cupertino is less than 10 miles from Google's, didn't disclose Quattro's sales price, but the technology blog All Things Digital pegged it at $275 million.
Google hopes AdMob can help it become as dominant selling ads for mobile phones as it has been in placing ads on Internet-connected computer screens during the past six years. Most of Google's ads are tied to search requests on personal computers, a system that has propelled Google's annual revenue from $1.5 billion in 2003 to more than $22 billion in 2009.
Meanwhile, the iPhone has turned into a gold mine for Apple, with more than 30 million of the handsets sold in the past 2 1/2 years and demand still growing. It has helped boost Apple's annual revenue from $24 billion in fiscal year 2007 to $36.5 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended Sept. 26.
Google acknowledges it also has benefited from the additional traffic that the iPhone has brought to its search engine and other services. But the revenue that Google gets from the iPhone may diminish as the array of applications that consumers put on their handsets decreases the need to use search engines to find popular services, Broadpoint.AmTech analyst Benjamin Schachter said in a recent research note.
By designing and selling its own phone, Google will have another way to ensure its services remain within easy reach of people on the go.
A looming showdown between Google and Apple seemed improbable just a few years ago when they had a common disdain — and fear — of software maker Microsoft Corp. "Now I think Google might be more focused on Apple than Microsoft," said technology analyst Rob Enderle. Google and Apple also publicly fawned over each other's elegantly designed products.
The companies even shared personal ties, with Apple board members Bill Campbell and Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, serving as advisers to Google in its early days. The companies' kinship culminated in Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, joining Apple's board in 2006. Schmidt resigned as an Apple director five months ago, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs citing Google's expansion into "Apple's core businesses" as the main reason for the departure.
The Federal Trade Commission had been looking into whether Schmidt's dual roles on the boards of Google and Apple might stifle competition between the two companies. That now appears to be a dead issue.
Wireless Design & Development
© 2010 Advantage Business Media
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Original Article Here
Nokia Launches a Million Dollar Venture Challenge
Nokia Launches a Million Dollar Venture Challenge to Encourage Innovators to "Do Good" in Growth Economies
Good ideas are a dime a dozen, or so the saying goes. But now a single good idea could be worth a million dollars (USD). Nokia has announced a million dollar venture challenge to encourage innovators to create a mobile product or service that raises the standard of living or enhances the lives of those in growth economies.
The Growth Economy Venture Challenge is part of Nokia's global Calling All Innovators competition announced on January 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Announcing the Growth Economy Venture Challenge at the conclusion of his keynote at CES, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo called on innovators to do good by bringing mobile solutions to parts of the world that can benefit most. At the same time he explained that mobile solutions can be quite profitable, but not exploitive, leading to financial "win-win" scenarios for both innovators and consumers.
"We've seen what the tech community can do when it focuses on problems that are also opportunities", Kallasvuo said. "We want to channel that energy toward improving lives in the developing world."
The Venture Challenge will consider any submission that enhances the target growth economy and also provides a potential return on the investment. The Venture Challenge is not limited to software or hardware that uses Nokia device or software platforms. In fact, as many emerging markets have varying degrees of mobile and Internet adoption, submissions can also expand beyond the mobile phone.
As examples of innovations in growth economies, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo spoke about several Nokia solutions and projects such as Nokia Life Tools, Nokia Tej and others that can be viewed at http://theprogressproject.com/.
The million dollars will be invested in a single winning organization with the best idea as decided by a combination of judges from Nokia Growth Partners, Nokia's venture arm, and Forum Nokia, Nokia's organization dedicated to 3rd party developers and other innovators.
Through Nokia Growth Partners and Forum Nokia, Nokia offers developers and innovators potential funding, expert technical support and marketing programs designed to assist and promote 3rd party activities on Nokia platforms.
Additionally, ten finalists will be invited to present their ideas and business models to a panel of Nokia business people and private venture capitalists. This provides an opportunity for the innovators to receive business guidance and possibly other funding from participating venture capitalists.
The Venture Challenge finalists will be announced by mid May 2010. The final winner will be announced in June, 2010. The deadline for submissions is April 18, 2010. Interested innovators can learn more and enter their submissions at http://www.callingallinnovators.com.
Wireless Design & Development
Good ideas are a dime a dozen, or so the saying goes. But now a single good idea could be worth a million dollars (USD). Nokia has announced a million dollar venture challenge to encourage innovators to create a mobile product or service that raises the standard of living or enhances the lives of those in growth economies.
The Growth Economy Venture Challenge is part of Nokia's global Calling All Innovators competition announced on January 7 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Announcing the Growth Economy Venture Challenge at the conclusion of his keynote at CES, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo called on innovators to do good by bringing mobile solutions to parts of the world that can benefit most. At the same time he explained that mobile solutions can be quite profitable, but not exploitive, leading to financial "win-win" scenarios for both innovators and consumers.
"We've seen what the tech community can do when it focuses on problems that are also opportunities", Kallasvuo said. "We want to channel that energy toward improving lives in the developing world."
The Venture Challenge will consider any submission that enhances the target growth economy and also provides a potential return on the investment. The Venture Challenge is not limited to software or hardware that uses Nokia device or software platforms. In fact, as many emerging markets have varying degrees of mobile and Internet adoption, submissions can also expand beyond the mobile phone.
As examples of innovations in growth economies, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo spoke about several Nokia solutions and projects such as Nokia Life Tools, Nokia Tej and others that can be viewed at http://theprogressproject.com/.
The million dollars will be invested in a single winning organization with the best idea as decided by a combination of judges from Nokia Growth Partners, Nokia's venture arm, and Forum Nokia, Nokia's organization dedicated to 3rd party developers and other innovators.
Through Nokia Growth Partners and Forum Nokia, Nokia offers developers and innovators potential funding, expert technical support and marketing programs designed to assist and promote 3rd party activities on Nokia platforms.
Additionally, ten finalists will be invited to present their ideas and business models to a panel of Nokia business people and private venture capitalists. This provides an opportunity for the innovators to receive business guidance and possibly other funding from participating venture capitalists.
The Venture Challenge finalists will be announced by mid May 2010. The final winner will be announced in June, 2010. The deadline for submissions is April 18, 2010. Interested innovators can learn more and enter their submissions at http://www.callingallinnovators.com.
Wireless Design & Development
© 2010 Advantage Business Media
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Original Article Here
SSD performance: Benchmarks that matter
There is a growing performance scaling discrepancy between CPUs and hard-disk drives (HDDs). While CPU performance has improved by 175 times in the last 13 years, HDD performance has improved by only 1.3 times. These mechanical, rotating hard drives, represent a significant performance bottleneck in computing platforms.
Solid-state drives (SSDs) can significantly increase the performance of computer storage subsystems. However, most SSD manufacturers are using access time and read/write sequential performance, or “throughput,” to describe the performance of their devices. Though these are useful measures, they do not tell the complete story.
A drive’s performance can vary with data transfer size and different combinations of sequential random reads and writes. For example, about 70% of the apps run by most end users on a daily basis use file transfer sizes of less than 16 Kbytes. Here, random read and write speeds are a more important indicator of performance than throughput.
Benchmarks
While different industry benchmarking suites provide standardized methods to calculate computing performance, not all benchmarking suites are equal. Some capture the performance of the overall system very well, but are unable to adequately measure the storage device’s performance. Ideally, storage device manufacturers should provide performance measures that demonstrate how their product operates under real-world workloads. In conjunction with system level benchmarking scores, these would provide design engineers with a better understanding of drive dynamics.
HDD and SSD specifications
HDD performance is determined mostly by drive latency and drive seek time, and is relatively easy to communicate. Latency can be directly computed from the RPM specification. Average latency is equal to 30 divided by RPM. Data transfer time, or the time it takes to move the data from or to the HDD, is usually less than 0.1 ms and is insignificant compared to drive latency and seek time. Engineers can look at RPM and seek time specifications and differentiate one HDD from another.
SSD performance, on the other hand, is more complex. Most SSD vendors provide sequential read and write performance specs. Though these numbers show how efficiently a drive can use the SATA or PATA bus during a read or write operation, it does not necessarily show how the SSD will perform under real-world workloads since that is highly dependent on random reads and writes.
Adding to the complexity is the SSD write performance. Although the SSD write performance is faster than write performance of a HDD, it is slower than the SSD read performance because the underlying NAND write operation is slower than read. It takes approximately 25 μs to read a page of data from the NAND nonvolatile memory area to the internal buffer. However, it can take 800 μs, or more, to write a page of data from the NAND internal buffer to the non-volatile memory area. An SSD write operation may also require a NAND erase operation and move data from one NAND block to another. These involve multiple page writes and block-erase operations, which will slow down the SSD write operation even more. This is why SSD vendors cannot simply rely on a single metric like RPM; they need to communicate read and write performance separately.
Further adding to the complexity is an SSD’s random I/O performance. An SSD with good sequential read and write performance does not necessarily have good random read and write performance. Real-world workloads show that more than 50% of I/O transfers are small file sizes (<16>
Original Article Here
Solid-state drives (SSDs) can significantly increase the performance of computer storage subsystems. However, most SSD manufacturers are using access time and read/write sequential performance, or “throughput,” to describe the performance of their devices. Though these are useful measures, they do not tell the complete story.
A drive’s performance can vary with data transfer size and different combinations of sequential random reads and writes. For example, about 70% of the apps run by most end users on a daily basis use file transfer sizes of less than 16 Kbytes. Here, random read and write speeds are a more important indicator of performance than throughput.
Benchmarks
While different industry benchmarking suites provide standardized methods to calculate computing performance, not all benchmarking suites are equal. Some capture the performance of the overall system very well, but are unable to adequately measure the storage device’s performance. Ideally, storage device manufacturers should provide performance measures that demonstrate how their product operates under real-world workloads. In conjunction with system level benchmarking scores, these would provide design engineers with a better understanding of drive dynamics.
HDD and SSD specifications
HDD performance is determined mostly by drive latency and drive seek time, and is relatively easy to communicate. Latency can be directly computed from the RPM specification. Average latency is equal to 30 divided by RPM. Data transfer time, or the time it takes to move the data from or to the HDD, is usually less than 0.1 ms and is insignificant compared to drive latency and seek time. Engineers can look at RPM and seek time specifications and differentiate one HDD from another.
SSD performance, on the other hand, is more complex. Most SSD vendors provide sequential read and write performance specs. Though these numbers show how efficiently a drive can use the SATA or PATA bus during a read or write operation, it does not necessarily show how the SSD will perform under real-world workloads since that is highly dependent on random reads and writes.
Adding to the complexity is the SSD write performance. Although the SSD write performance is faster than write performance of a HDD, it is slower than the SSD read performance because the underlying NAND write operation is slower than read. It takes approximately 25 μs to read a page of data from the NAND nonvolatile memory area to the internal buffer. However, it can take 800 μs, or more, to write a page of data from the NAND internal buffer to the non-volatile memory area. An SSD write operation may also require a NAND erase operation and move data from one NAND block to another. These involve multiple page writes and block-erase operations, which will slow down the SSD write operation even more. This is why SSD vendors cannot simply rely on a single metric like RPM; they need to communicate read and write performance separately.
Further adding to the complexity is an SSD’s random I/O performance. An SSD with good sequential read and write performance does not necessarily have good random read and write performance. Real-world workloads show that more than 50% of I/O transfers are small file sizes (<16>
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Original Article Here
Jan 23, 2010
Everything you ever wanted to know about 3-D TV
LAS VEGAS — The consumer electronics industry is seeing its future through a pair of stereo 3-D glasses. The left eye sees an opportunity to revive sagging TV and media revenues, the right eye sees a set of unresolved technical issues.
That was the somewhat bipolar picture from this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Attendees crowded booths to watch adrenaline-pumping 3-D TV movies and sports while technologists packed panel sessions to sort through issues of incompatible formats and unfinished standards.
The business rationale is clear. TV unit shipments will rebound a modest six percent in 2010 after declining one percent in 2009, according to market watcher DisplaySearch (Austin). However revenues were down 10 percent due to a nine percent fall in global average selling prices, the first year of declining prices since the flat panel TV transition began, the company added.
Similarly, studios have watched sales of movies on optical disks drop as much as 13 percent in 2009. Revenue from sales of content online is growing but not newly fast enough to make up for the losses.
For two years studios led by DreamWorks Animation chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg have been saying they want to bring their premium 3-D theatrical releases to the home as a way to bolster revenues. Somewhere on the road to CES 2010, the broadcasters and systems companies got on board.
Every major TV maker pledged at CES to ship 3-D TVs by June or earlier. They made 3-D TV demos the center of their huge show floor exhibits.
"Everyone is going at breakneck speed because we believe 3-D will rejuvenate the consumer electronics business," said Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, chief technology officer of Panasonic North America. "We saw this CES as a watershed, so the first generation products may have some issues," he added.
As the bandwagon grows, so does the vision.
3-D TV is "not a feature but a platform," said Tsuyuzaki. "It's not only about consumer electronics, but has applications in health care and engineering," he added
"There will be new kinds of experiences opened up here because how many of us can afford, for example, a sideline ticket to the Super Bowl," said Buzz Hays, former stereographer at Disney now part of Sony Pictures Imageworks.
Indeed, companies are already making plans for stereo 3-D consumer cameras and camcorders that will arrive "way earlier than five years from now," said Tsuyuzaki.
"The fact that YouTube can already support stereo 3-D makes it very interesting," said Nandhu Nandhakumar, senior vice president of advanced technology at LG Electronics. "The 3-D wave has snowballed, and I think the speed at which it happened has caught many people by surprise," he said.
An online survey of about 2,000 U.S. adults provided a cautionary note.
About a third said they saw a 3-D movie in the last year, 80 percent of those said they enjoyed it and a quarter of the total group said they would buy a 3-D TV within three years. However, they also said they would expect to pay $1,000 or less.
Although TV makers did not announce prices at CES, most 3-D TVs are expected to cost three times that or more. LG launched a 3-D TV in Korea in August for $3,000. Toshiba's Cell TV could sell for $10,000 in the U.S.
"They will be the Cadillacs of the display market," said Shawn DuBravac, director of research at the Consumer Electronics Association, co-author of the study. The smallest 3-D TV set he saw on the CES show floor was a 46-inch model, he added.
'A living, breathing science project'
Whatever the reception, 3-D TV is coming. As a first step in providing content the Blu-ray Disk Association finished a standard for high def 3-D disks in mid-December so disks can ship in tandem with the TVs. Katzenberg personally handed the first 3-D Blu-ray copy of "Monsters vs. Aliens" to the president of Samsung North America at one CES press conference.
Systems makers will ship a new generation of 3-D enabled Blu-ray drives in tandem with the new TVs this year. They will sport their own format and the latest 1.4 version of the HDMI interconnect built with the bandwidth and signaling capabilities to handle 3-D content in full high def.
Other content and broadcasting companies including British Sky Broadcasting, DirecTv, Discovery Channel and ESPN said they will turn on dedicated 3-D services in 2010.
"This is a living, breathing science project but we are comfortable going ahead," said Chuck Pagano, executive vice president of technology at ESPN, which plans to launch multiple stereo 3-D channels starting in June with its broadcast of the World Cup.
The broadcasters, however, bring along one of the many technical wrinkles ahead. They have yet to release details of what formats they will use, and they are expected to adopt differing approaches. That's setting up a last minute crunch all down the supply chain for the first wave of products.
That was the somewhat bipolar picture from this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Attendees crowded booths to watch adrenaline-pumping 3-D TV movies and sports while technologists packed panel sessions to sort through issues of incompatible formats and unfinished standards.
The business rationale is clear. TV unit shipments will rebound a modest six percent in 2010 after declining one percent in 2009, according to market watcher DisplaySearch (Austin). However revenues were down 10 percent due to a nine percent fall in global average selling prices, the first year of declining prices since the flat panel TV transition began, the company added.
Similarly, studios have watched sales of movies on optical disks drop as much as 13 percent in 2009. Revenue from sales of content online is growing but not newly fast enough to make up for the losses.
For two years studios led by DreamWorks Animation chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg have been saying they want to bring their premium 3-D theatrical releases to the home as a way to bolster revenues. Somewhere on the road to CES 2010, the broadcasters and systems companies got on board.
Every major TV maker pledged at CES to ship 3-D TVs by June or earlier. They made 3-D TV demos the center of their huge show floor exhibits.
"Everyone is going at breakneck speed because we believe 3-D will rejuvenate the consumer electronics business," said Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, chief technology officer of Panasonic North America. "We saw this CES as a watershed, so the first generation products may have some issues," he added.
As the bandwagon grows, so does the vision.
3-D TV is "not a feature but a platform," said Tsuyuzaki. "It's not only about consumer electronics, but has applications in health care and engineering," he added
"There will be new kinds of experiences opened up here because how many of us can afford, for example, a sideline ticket to the Super Bowl," said Buzz Hays, former stereographer at Disney now part of Sony Pictures Imageworks.
Indeed, companies are already making plans for stereo 3-D consumer cameras and camcorders that will arrive "way earlier than five years from now," said Tsuyuzaki.
"The fact that YouTube can already support stereo 3-D makes it very interesting," said Nandhu Nandhakumar, senior vice president of advanced technology at LG Electronics. "The 3-D wave has snowballed, and I think the speed at which it happened has caught many people by surprise," he said.
An online survey of about 2,000 U.S. adults provided a cautionary note.
About a third said they saw a 3-D movie in the last year, 80 percent of those said they enjoyed it and a quarter of the total group said they would buy a 3-D TV within three years. However, they also said they would expect to pay $1,000 or less.
Although TV makers did not announce prices at CES, most 3-D TVs are expected to cost three times that or more. LG launched a 3-D TV in Korea in August for $3,000. Toshiba's Cell TV could sell for $10,000 in the U.S.
"They will be the Cadillacs of the display market," said Shawn DuBravac, director of research at the Consumer Electronics Association, co-author of the study. The smallest 3-D TV set he saw on the CES show floor was a 46-inch model, he added.
'A living, breathing science project'
Whatever the reception, 3-D TV is coming. As a first step in providing content the Blu-ray Disk Association finished a standard for high def 3-D disks in mid-December so disks can ship in tandem with the TVs. Katzenberg personally handed the first 3-D Blu-ray copy of "Monsters vs. Aliens" to the president of Samsung North America at one CES press conference.
Systems makers will ship a new generation of 3-D enabled Blu-ray drives in tandem with the new TVs this year. They will sport their own format and the latest 1.4 version of the HDMI interconnect built with the bandwidth and signaling capabilities to handle 3-D content in full high def.
Other content and broadcasting companies including British Sky Broadcasting, DirecTv, Discovery Channel and ESPN said they will turn on dedicated 3-D services in 2010.
"This is a living, breathing science project but we are comfortable going ahead," said Chuck Pagano, executive vice president of technology at ESPN, which plans to launch multiple stereo 3-D channels starting in June with its broadcast of the World Cup.
The broadcasters, however, bring along one of the many technical wrinkles ahead. They have yet to release details of what formats they will use, and they are expected to adopt differing approaches. That's setting up a last minute crunch all down the supply chain for the first wave of products.
All the broadcast signals are expected to be "frame compatible" with today's content coming into cable TV plants and set-top boxes.
Rick Merritt
Page 1 of 4
EE Times
(01/12/2010 8:36 PM EST)
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Original Article Here
U.S. cracks down on Energy Star violators
Honor system out as DoE plans compliance testing
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Department of Energy plans to start conducting its own tests soon to determine whether products are in compliance with the Energy Star program. The move is the latest step in a broad initiative under the Obama Administration to crack down on an electronics industry that has been lax in adhering to the requirements of the energy efficiency program.
About 60 categories of products ranging from refrigerators to computer servers are currently covered under the Energy Star program. The program sets limits to energy use and provides a brand logo complaint products can wear.
The DoE announced in October it created an enforcement team for the Energy Star program. "Energy efficiency and the Energy Star program are high priorities under this administration because it saves money and helps reduce climate change," said a Department of Energy spokeswoman.
The DoE is contracting with a number of small independent labs that will conduct Energy Star compliance testing on the administration's behalf. DoE labs will oversee the effort which will be announced "in the next few weeks or months," the spokeswoman said.
The move replaces what has been an apparently ineffective honor system.
The DoE gave electronics companies a 30-day warning it would start citing manufacturers who did not submit Energy Star compliance reports. By January 8 when the deadline hit, the DoE received 600,000 compliance reports.
"We had a lot of data, but we were missing a lot," the DoE spokeswoman said. "We are actively going through that new material now, and will be taking steps against any manufacturers not meeting the requirements," she added.
The DoE is already cracking down on a handful of OEMs whose Energy Star products are not in compliance. Starting Wednesday (Jan. 20) the DoE will require LG Electronics remove Energy Star labels from 40,000 of it refrigerators, following a decision on Jan. 18 by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The DoE said LG tested the refrigerators with their ice makers turned off. The Energy Star procedure for the refrigerators is to test them with the ice makers on, but not in operation. LG had obtained a temporary stay from the DoE on its testing procedure and the two had battled in court over terms of that agreement.
The DoE has pending actions with at least two other white goods makers. It plans to have independent tests conducted on air conditioners from Aerosys, and the DOE won a consent decree recently against freezers from China OEM Haier.
"There will be additional announcements [of other actions] soon," the spokeswoman said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched the Energy Star program in the early 1990's. However, the DoE and EPA recently forged an agreement splitting up duties to manage the program that also put the DoE in charge of a whole-building effort.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The U.S. Department of Energy plans to start conducting its own tests soon to determine whether products are in compliance with the Energy Star program. The move is the latest step in a broad initiative under the Obama Administration to crack down on an electronics industry that has been lax in adhering to the requirements of the energy efficiency program.
About 60 categories of products ranging from refrigerators to computer servers are currently covered under the Energy Star program. The program sets limits to energy use and provides a brand logo complaint products can wear.
The DoE announced in October it created an enforcement team for the Energy Star program. "Energy efficiency and the Energy Star program are high priorities under this administration because it saves money and helps reduce climate change," said a Department of Energy spokeswoman.
The DoE is contracting with a number of small independent labs that will conduct Energy Star compliance testing on the administration's behalf. DoE labs will oversee the effort which will be announced "in the next few weeks or months," the spokeswoman said.
The move replaces what has been an apparently ineffective honor system.
The DoE gave electronics companies a 30-day warning it would start citing manufacturers who did not submit Energy Star compliance reports. By January 8 when the deadline hit, the DoE received 600,000 compliance reports.
"We had a lot of data, but we were missing a lot," the DoE spokeswoman said. "We are actively going through that new material now, and will be taking steps against any manufacturers not meeting the requirements," she added.
The DoE is already cracking down on a handful of OEMs whose Energy Star products are not in compliance. Starting Wednesday (Jan. 20) the DoE will require LG Electronics remove Energy Star labels from 40,000 of it refrigerators, following a decision on Jan. 18 by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
The DoE said LG tested the refrigerators with their ice makers turned off. The Energy Star procedure for the refrigerators is to test them with the ice makers on, but not in operation. LG had obtained a temporary stay from the DoE on its testing procedure and the two had battled in court over terms of that agreement.
The DoE has pending actions with at least two other white goods makers. It plans to have independent tests conducted on air conditioners from Aerosys, and the DOE won a consent decree recently against freezers from China OEM Haier.
"There will be additional announcements [of other actions] soon," the spokeswoman said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched the Energy Star program in the early 1990's. However, the DoE and EPA recently forged an agreement splitting up duties to manage the program that also put the DoE in charge of a whole-building effort.
Consumer Reports has been one of the DoE's allies in stepping up enforcement efforts. "They have often been the ones to flag some appliances are consuming too much energy," the spokeswoman said.
Rick Merritt
EE Times
(01/19/2010 4:27 PM EST)
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Original Article Here
Jan 22, 2010
The India Solar Market: How Big and How Soon?
In India, solar project and policy announcements are piling up, but predicting market growth can be tricky.
Depending on who you talk to, India will either be the next major solar market or it will never get off the ground. The underlying conditions are sound; India has high insolation throughout its territory and an energy deficit of 10 to 15 percent, leaving over 450 million people without access to electricity. Coupled with frequent blackouts in cities and a need to rapidly scale up electricity production in rural areas, India looks like an attractive market for solar. Indeed, India's solar potential has been looking up over the past three months, as a flurry of solar-related announcements has emerged. But each one has arrived with caveats from developers, financiers and analysts.
The first, and most important, announcement came in November 2009, when India announced its Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (NSM), a comprehensive, $19 billion plan with a goal to reach 20 gigawatts of installed solar capacity by 2020. The program was confirmed last week with an official announcement from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The NSM is designed to be implemented in three distinct phases, each with its own targets:
Application Segment
Phase 1 (2010-2013)
Phase 2 (2013-2017)
Phase 3 (2017-2022)
Solar Collectors
7 million sq. meters
15 million sq. meters
20 million sq. meters
Off-grid solar applications
200 MW
1,000 MW
2,000 MW
Utility grid power, including rooftop
1,000-2,000 MW
4,000-10,000 MW
20,000 MW
To reach these lofty goals, the Indian Ministry for New and Renewable Energy plans to implement three broad incentives. First, the NSM sets up a solar energy purchase obligation for utilities, like a Renewable Portfolio Standard in the U.S. and Europe. Utilities will be required to source 0.25% of their electricity from solar energy by 2013, increasing to 3% by 2022. The NSM calls for a credit trading mechanism (like SREC markets in the U.S.) to reach these goals more efficiently.
Second, India will set up a national feed-in tariff. The Central Energy Regulatory Commission (CERC) has indicated that FIT rates in 2010 will be 18.44 Rupees/kWh (~$0.40/kWh) with 25 year terms.
In contrast to feed-in tariffs in most of Europe, which are must-take for utilities, the Indian feed-in tariff will be implemented through an RFP process with projects selected based on financial and technical feasibility. Developers expect the first RFP for feed-in tariff projects to begin around March, with PPAs to be signed by the end of the year.
NTPC, the power trading and utility arm of the CERC, will bundle solar with traditional thermal generation and re-sell the package to local and state utilities at a lower rate than was paid in the feed-in tariff. Conversations with project developers in India suggest that the bundled rate to utilities will be around 5 rupees per kWh, in contrast to the 2.5-3.0 rupees per kWh for traditional thermal generation.
Third, the government will provide direct subsidies for off-grid residential projects through the Remote Village Electrification Program (RVEP), which will offer rebates of up to 90 percent of system costs up to 18,000 Rupees ($385) per household. There may ultimately be additional off-grid subsidies for larger systems as well.
Since the introduction of the NSM, the announcements have kept coming. NTPC announced that it would construct 301 MW of solar capacity by March 2014. Of this, 111 MW would be PV and the remainder would be solar thermal. Three Indian states, West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan announced plans to produce 345 MW of solar capacity under the NSM: 110 MW in West Bengal, 130 MW in Gujarat, and 100 MW in Rajasthan. Topsun Energy Ltd. announced plans to construct a 5 MW grid-connected PV system in Gujarat. And a number of companies including Moser Baer and Reliance Industries Ltd. have expressed interest in PV module production within India.
But lest we get too excited, there are three major barriers to market growth in India:
1) NSM Program Funding: As noted above, India's National Solar Mission comes with an estimated $19 billion price tag. The Indian government has committed to funding the $900 million needed for the first phase, but it is counting on UNFCCC funds (the ones that raised such a fuss in Copenhagen) to cover the next two phases. This casts significant doubt on longer-term market growth.
2) Project Financing: Indian project developers have suggested that the biggest barrier to near-term growth will be the willingness of Indian banks to finance solar projects, which are still a relatively unfamiliar proposition to most domestic financiers. Interest rates for solar projects are reported to be around 13%, with relatively short maturities. Traditional energy developers with large balance sheets may be able to leverage existing relationships with banks to bring these rates down somewhat.
3) Permitting and Project Development: Some reports have indicated the difficulty in attaining permits and land for solar projects in India. In the Wall Street Journal, Inderpreet Wadhwa, founder of Azure Power, the developer of India's first privately owned utility-scale PV project (a two megawatt system that came online in December 2009) detailed many of the bureaucratic hurdles he'd faced. These included prolonged negotiations with various village, district and state officials, as well as questionable consultants offering to streamline the process for a fee.
Depending on who you talk to, India will either be the next major solar market or it will never get off the ground. The underlying conditions are sound; India has high insolation throughout its territory and an energy deficit of 10 to 15 percent, leaving over 450 million people without access to electricity. Coupled with frequent blackouts in cities and a need to rapidly scale up electricity production in rural areas, India looks like an attractive market for solar. Indeed, India's solar potential has been looking up over the past three months, as a flurry of solar-related announcements has emerged. But each one has arrived with caveats from developers, financiers and analysts.
The first, and most important, announcement came in November 2009, when India announced its Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (NSM), a comprehensive, $19 billion plan with a goal to reach 20 gigawatts of installed solar capacity by 2020. The program was confirmed last week with an official announcement from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The NSM is designed to be implemented in three distinct phases, each with its own targets:
Application Segment
Phase 1 (2010-2013)
Phase 2 (2013-2017)
Phase 3 (2017-2022)
Solar Collectors
7 million sq. meters
15 million sq. meters
20 million sq. meters
Off-grid solar applications
200 MW
1,000 MW
2,000 MW
Utility grid power, including rooftop
1,000-2,000 MW
4,000-10,000 MW
20,000 MW
To reach these lofty goals, the Indian Ministry for New and Renewable Energy plans to implement three broad incentives. First, the NSM sets up a solar energy purchase obligation for utilities, like a Renewable Portfolio Standard in the U.S. and Europe. Utilities will be required to source 0.25% of their electricity from solar energy by 2013, increasing to 3% by 2022. The NSM calls for a credit trading mechanism (like SREC markets in the U.S.) to reach these goals more efficiently.
Second, India will set up a national feed-in tariff. The Central Energy Regulatory Commission (CERC) has indicated that FIT rates in 2010 will be 18.44 Rupees/kWh (~$0.40/kWh) with 25 year terms.
In contrast to feed-in tariffs in most of Europe, which are must-take for utilities, the Indian feed-in tariff will be implemented through an RFP process with projects selected based on financial and technical feasibility. Developers expect the first RFP for feed-in tariff projects to begin around March, with PPAs to be signed by the end of the year.
NTPC, the power trading and utility arm of the CERC, will bundle solar with traditional thermal generation and re-sell the package to local and state utilities at a lower rate than was paid in the feed-in tariff. Conversations with project developers in India suggest that the bundled rate to utilities will be around 5 rupees per kWh, in contrast to the 2.5-3.0 rupees per kWh for traditional thermal generation.
Third, the government will provide direct subsidies for off-grid residential projects through the Remote Village Electrification Program (RVEP), which will offer rebates of up to 90 percent of system costs up to 18,000 Rupees ($385) per household. There may ultimately be additional off-grid subsidies for larger systems as well.
Since the introduction of the NSM, the announcements have kept coming. NTPC announced that it would construct 301 MW of solar capacity by March 2014. Of this, 111 MW would be PV and the remainder would be solar thermal. Three Indian states, West Bengal, Gujarat and Rajasthan announced plans to produce 345 MW of solar capacity under the NSM: 110 MW in West Bengal, 130 MW in Gujarat, and 100 MW in Rajasthan. Topsun Energy Ltd. announced plans to construct a 5 MW grid-connected PV system in Gujarat. And a number of companies including Moser Baer and Reliance Industries Ltd. have expressed interest in PV module production within India.
But lest we get too excited, there are three major barriers to market growth in India:
1) NSM Program Funding: As noted above, India's National Solar Mission comes with an estimated $19 billion price tag. The Indian government has committed to funding the $900 million needed for the first phase, but it is counting on UNFCCC funds (the ones that raised such a fuss in Copenhagen) to cover the next two phases. This casts significant doubt on longer-term market growth.
2) Project Financing: Indian project developers have suggested that the biggest barrier to near-term growth will be the willingness of Indian banks to finance solar projects, which are still a relatively unfamiliar proposition to most domestic financiers. Interest rates for solar projects are reported to be around 13%, with relatively short maturities. Traditional energy developers with large balance sheets may be able to leverage existing relationships with banks to bring these rates down somewhat.
3) Permitting and Project Development: Some reports have indicated the difficulty in attaining permits and land for solar projects in India. In the Wall Street Journal, Inderpreet Wadhwa, founder of Azure Power, the developer of India's first privately owned utility-scale PV project (a two megawatt system that came online in December 2009) detailed many of the bureaucratic hurdles he'd faced. These included prolonged negotiations with various village, district and state officials, as well as questionable consultants offering to streamline the process for a fee.
2010 will be a crucial ramp-up year for the Indian solar market. As NSM implementation begins over the next few months, we'll get early indicators of the severity of project financing and development barriers. But if funding remains available and early projects show success, India could quickly emerge as a vital solar market.
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Google smartphone teardown reveals few surprises
The bottom of the main PCB for Nexus One.
SAN FRANCISCO—Google Inc.'s Nexus One smartphone carries an estimated bill of materials (BOM) cost of $174.15 and features chips from Qualcomm Inc., Synaptics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., among others, according to a teardown analysis conducted by market research firm iSuppli Corp.
The Nexus One, sold with the Google brand name but manufactured by HTC Corp., incorporates many of the latest smart-phone innovations in a single product that manages to be both cutting edge and cost competitive, according to iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.). The product was introduced with great fanfare last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The Nexus One teardown revealed very few surprises, according to Paul McWilliams, an analyst with Next Inning Technology Research. It was already well known that the handset was based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 1-GHz processor, which Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs noted in his keynote address at CES, McWilliams said. Other things were also well known prior to the teardown, McWilliams said, including the fact that the handset includes 4GB of NAND flash in a microSD card (supplied by Samsung).
ISuppli's preliminary BOM estimate of $174.15 comprises only hardware and component costs for the Nexus One itself and does not take into consideration other expenses such as manufacturing, software, box contents, accessories and royalties, iSuppli said.
"Items like the durable unibody construction, the blazingly fast Snapdragon baseband processor and the bright and sharp active-matrix organic light emitting diode (AM-OLED) display all have been seen in previous phones, but never before combined into a single design," said Kevin Keller, a senior analyst at iSuppli, in a statement. Keller said the Nexus One has the most advanced features of any smartphone ever dissected by iSuppli's teardown analysis service.
ISuppli estimated the cost of the Snapdragon at $30.50, making it the most expensive single component in the Nexus One, the firm said. With the inclusion of the Snapdragon and the associated power-management and radio frequency transceiver chips, Qualcomm commands 20.4 percent of the Nexus One's BOM, giving it the biggest dollar share of any component supplier in the design, iSuppli said.
One of the Nexus One's signature features is its 3.7-inch AM-OLED display, which is superior to the conventional LCDs used in most smart phone designs in a variety of ways, iSuppli said. Compared to LCDs, AM-OLEDs deliver a larger color gamut, a faster response time, a thinner form factor and reduced power consumption, according to the firm.
The Nexus One also sports a unibody design, which means that the smart phone's enclosure comprises a single part, iSuppli said. Such a design approach provides greater structural rigidity, providing more protection to the internal electronics in case the phone is dropped, the firm said. But a unibody tends to drive up manufacturing costs, iSuppli noted.
In addition to the NAND flash, the Nexus One includes 4Gbits (512MByte) of Samsung's DDR2 DRAM, iSuppli said, compared with 1Gbit or 2Gbit for comparable smart phones. The large quantity of DRAM is required to store executable code to support the fast performance of the Snapdragon processor, and allows for better application performance, iSuppli said.
Original Article Here
SAN FRANCISCO—Google Inc.'s Nexus One smartphone carries an estimated bill of materials (BOM) cost of $174.15 and features chips from Qualcomm Inc., Synaptics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., among others, according to a teardown analysis conducted by market research firm iSuppli Corp.
The Nexus One, sold with the Google brand name but manufactured by HTC Corp., incorporates many of the latest smart-phone innovations in a single product that manages to be both cutting edge and cost competitive, according to iSuppli (El Segundo, Calif.). The product was introduced with great fanfare last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The Nexus One teardown revealed very few surprises, according to Paul McWilliams, an analyst with Next Inning Technology Research. It was already well known that the handset was based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 1-GHz processor, which Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs noted in his keynote address at CES, McWilliams said. Other things were also well known prior to the teardown, McWilliams said, including the fact that the handset includes 4GB of NAND flash in a microSD card (supplied by Samsung).
ISuppli's preliminary BOM estimate of $174.15 comprises only hardware and component costs for the Nexus One itself and does not take into consideration other expenses such as manufacturing, software, box contents, accessories and royalties, iSuppli said.
"Items like the durable unibody construction, the blazingly fast Snapdragon baseband processor and the bright and sharp active-matrix organic light emitting diode (AM-OLED) display all have been seen in previous phones, but never before combined into a single design," said Kevin Keller, a senior analyst at iSuppli, in a statement. Keller said the Nexus One has the most advanced features of any smartphone ever dissected by iSuppli's teardown analysis service.
ISuppli estimated the cost of the Snapdragon at $30.50, making it the most expensive single component in the Nexus One, the firm said. With the inclusion of the Snapdragon and the associated power-management and radio frequency transceiver chips, Qualcomm commands 20.4 percent of the Nexus One's BOM, giving it the biggest dollar share of any component supplier in the design, iSuppli said.
One of the Nexus One's signature features is its 3.7-inch AM-OLED display, which is superior to the conventional LCDs used in most smart phone designs in a variety of ways, iSuppli said. Compared to LCDs, AM-OLEDs deliver a larger color gamut, a faster response time, a thinner form factor and reduced power consumption, according to the firm.
The Nexus One also sports a unibody design, which means that the smart phone's enclosure comprises a single part, iSuppli said. Such a design approach provides greater structural rigidity, providing more protection to the internal electronics in case the phone is dropped, the firm said. But a unibody tends to drive up manufacturing costs, iSuppli noted.
In addition to the NAND flash, the Nexus One includes 4Gbits (512MByte) of Samsung's DDR2 DRAM, iSuppli said, compared with 1Gbit or 2Gbit for comparable smart phones. The large quantity of DRAM is required to store executable code to support the fast performance of the Snapdragon processor, and allows for better application performance, iSuppli said.
Synaptics supplies the phone's capacitive touch-screen assembly at an estimated BOM cost of $17.50—10 percent of the total BOM—iSuppli said.
Dylan McGrath
EE Times
(01/11/2010 3:34 PM EST)
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Strong solar growth to resume in 2010, says analyst
PARIS — Demand trends for solar products that began in the third quarter of 2009 will extend into 2010 and solar installation will see strong year-on-year growth, according to Needham & Co. LLC (New York).
In its latest report, Needham noted that substantial growth in solar demand will be driven by price stabilization, improvement in the credit markets, regional demand jumps on favorable government policies as well as the increasing electricity costs.
Needham referred to the Street whose predictions are that the solar revenue will grow by 3 percent sequentially in the first half of 2010 and by 19 percent in the second half of the year. These estimations, Needham highlighted, are "too conservative, as the demand picture continues to improve into the new year and prices remain stable."
According to Needham, Germany will remain one of the leading solar markets. But, the worldwide solar industry has become less concentrated, and newly-formed solar markets are expected to report strong growth in a near future.
In more precise terms, Needham said it anticipates that Germany declines by about 35 percent of worldwide solar installations in 2010, versus 52 percent in 2009, with emerging solar markets such as the U.S., Italy and China each growing share. For instance, Chinese solar installations are growing from just 47MW in 2008 to 1GW in 2012, for a CAGR of 115 percent.
In the report, Needham attracted investors' attention on cost leaders and companies that are leveraged to key growing markets in 2010. The market research group indeed expects that companies with good cost structure will generate solid profits, and companies with strong project pipelines will deliver outperforming revenue growth. It highlighted JA Solar Holdings and SunPower.
Anne-Francoise Pele
EE Times
(01/06/2010 10:46 AM EST)
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Copper supply exceeds demand
10-month data show China as biggest user
Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 1/21/2010 11:34:01 AM
World copper use in the first 10 months of 2009 slipped by 1% to15.089 million metric tons from January-October 2008, according to the International Copper Study Group (ICSG), while inventories registered a surplus of 78,000 metric tons-as compared with a deficit of about 58,000 metric tons in the first ten months of 2008.
Through October, Chinese use of refined copper grew by 43% to 1.8 million metric tons to account for 40% of world use-and nearly offset an 18% decline in the rest of the world. Use decreased by 21% in the European Union's 15 countries, by 31% in Japan, and by 21% in the U.S. The ISCG says these regions, when combined, account for about 29.5% of world use.
World mine production grew by 1.9% in the first 10 months of 2009 compared with the same period of 2008. Still, mine production capacity utilization fell to 79.7% compared with 81.7% in the same period of 2008. Meanwhile, concentrate production grew by 0.5%, while solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX/EW) was up by 7.3%.
World refined production in the first ten months of 2009 was essentially flat compared with a year earlier. Primary production increased by 0.3% while secondary production (from scrap) decreased by 2%. Refined production capacity utilization fell to 77.8% compared with an average rate of 80.9% in the same period of 2008.
Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 1/21/2010 11:34:01 AM
World copper use in the first 10 months of 2009 slipped by 1% to15.089 million metric tons from January-October 2008, according to the International Copper Study Group (ICSG), while inventories registered a surplus of 78,000 metric tons-as compared with a deficit of about 58,000 metric tons in the first ten months of 2008.
Through October, Chinese use of refined copper grew by 43% to 1.8 million metric tons to account for 40% of world use-and nearly offset an 18% decline in the rest of the world. Use decreased by 21% in the European Union's 15 countries, by 31% in Japan, and by 21% in the U.S. The ISCG says these regions, when combined, account for about 29.5% of world use.
World mine production grew by 1.9% in the first 10 months of 2009 compared with the same period of 2008. Still, mine production capacity utilization fell to 79.7% compared with 81.7% in the same period of 2008. Meanwhile, concentrate production grew by 0.5%, while solvent extraction-electrowinning (SX/EW) was up by 7.3%.
World refined production in the first ten months of 2009 was essentially flat compared with a year earlier. Primary production increased by 0.3% while secondary production (from scrap) decreased by 2%. Refined production capacity utilization fell to 77.8% compared with an average rate of 80.9% in the same period of 2008.
Production in the major world producers-Australia, Chile, the U.S., China and Canada-dropped fell by a total of 270,000 metric tons, and partially offset growth in Indonesia, Peru, the Congo and Brazil.
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CES 2008 Brings Lots of IPTV Innovation
DVR Anywhere, YouTube in the living room and alternatives to set-top boxes were a few of the announcements at this year’s show in Las Vegas.
This year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, where Bill Gates made his final keynote address, showcased many new IPTV developments — particularly new ways to get content to the TV. However, many were left disappointed that the IPTV-enabled Xbox 360 promised at last year’s CES hasn’t materialized. This left many asking whether the device would ever emerge, and the answer appears to be yes, at least according to an announced partnership with British Telecommunications Plc., or BT. The deal will allow BT Broadband customers to use an Xbox 360 console to access the BT Vision IPTV service and its library of on-demand content, also available through a standard set-top box. The offering is expected to be available mid-2008.
RELATED ARTICLES:
The Top IPTV Developments of 2007
IPTV: A Survival Strategy or Revenue Generator for Telcos?
State of the IPTV Market 2007
Why IPTV/IP Video Transport is Different from Data and Voice
Microsoft had its share of other announcements, including the availability of DVR Anywhere, a whole-home DVR which uses the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform and proves the ability to watch recorded programs on any TV in the home. It requires only one set-top box with a hard drive and supports both standard and HD (high definition) TV. AT&T has announced plans to roll out the feature for its U-verse IPTV service within the next month.
Microsoft will also enhance its Mediaroom platform in a partnership with Broadcom Corp. The collaboration will enable the Mediaroom software to operate on set-top boxes using the Broadcom BCM7405 System-on-a-Chip. This will allow service providers and original-equipment manufacturers to support a range of features, such as whole-home digital-video recording, high-performance user interfaces and photo and music sharing.
The "TV" in IPTV
A major theme of the show was the ability to send online video or applications directly to the TV, bypassing the need for a set-top box altogether. This could become important for online IPTV services like Joost N.V. and for new video-distribution services like NBC Universal Inc.’s Hulu portal. It could also change the telco IPTV landscape, particularly if it eliminates the need for DVRs, although this would likely not be seen for quite some time. Sharp Corp., Samsung Group and Panasonic Corp. all made announcements on this topic.
Sharp’s new AQUOS Net service will use on-screen widgets to deliver information such as weather, stock quotes and other news directly from the Internet to AQUOS LCD HDTVs. The TVs will come with built-in Ethernet plugs, and the company announced several powerline-networking adapters to stream the content around the home to the TV as an alternative. The company said it also hopes to deliver video in the near future.
Samsung announced a similar offering in a partnership with USA Today: It will send news stories and other content from the paper’s site to Samsung’s new Series 6 and Series 7 LCD and plasma HDTVs via an Ethernet connection. Samsung also offers an add-on allowing the TVs to receive Internet video.
The biggest announcement in this space comes from Panasonic, whose new VIERA PZ850 series Plasma HDTVs will enable viewers to browse and watch videos from YouTube and view photos from their Picasa Web Albums, a free, online photo-sharing service — both services are owned by Google. The Internet-connected HDTVs are expected to be available in spring 2008.
Set-Top Boxes RIP?
In other news, Sling Media Inc.’s SlingCatcher was finally revealed — a set-top box that delivers broadcast TV, Internet content and personal media to the TV. The SlingCatcher includes three built-in applications: SlingPlayer for TV, SlingProjector and SlingSync. SlingPlayer for TV offers the ability to send programming to another TV in the home or to a TV in a remote location without a PC. SlingProjector enables viewers to project Internet and PC-based digital content, such as downloaded movies or YouTube videos, directly to the TV. SlingSync gives users the ability to sync files over their network connections and store them on third-party USB flash drives or other portable hard drives attached to their SlingCatchers, giving them the ability to use the SlingCatchers to replay content on demand and manage content from PCs via the SlingCatcher user interface.
D-Link Corp. also announced a media player that allows a user to stream Web-based content available on his or her PC to a TV, either wired or wirelessly , without the need for a proprietary media player. Virtually any local video content can be sent to and viewed on a TV using a media player such as iTunes, Nero, Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.
This year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, where Bill Gates made his final keynote address, showcased many new IPTV developments — particularly new ways to get content to the TV. However, many were left disappointed that the IPTV-enabled Xbox 360 promised at last year’s CES hasn’t materialized. This left many asking whether the device would ever emerge, and the answer appears to be yes, at least according to an announced partnership with British Telecommunications Plc., or BT. The deal will allow BT Broadband customers to use an Xbox 360 console to access the BT Vision IPTV service and its library of on-demand content, also available through a standard set-top box. The offering is expected to be available mid-2008.
RELATED ARTICLES:
The Top IPTV Developments of 2007
IPTV: A Survival Strategy or Revenue Generator for Telcos?
State of the IPTV Market 2007
Why IPTV/IP Video Transport is Different from Data and Voice
Microsoft had its share of other announcements, including the availability of DVR Anywhere, a whole-home DVR which uses the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform and proves the ability to watch recorded programs on any TV in the home. It requires only one set-top box with a hard drive and supports both standard and HD (high definition) TV. AT&T has announced plans to roll out the feature for its U-verse IPTV service within the next month.
Microsoft will also enhance its Mediaroom platform in a partnership with Broadcom Corp. The collaboration will enable the Mediaroom software to operate on set-top boxes using the Broadcom BCM7405 System-on-a-Chip. This will allow service providers and original-equipment manufacturers to support a range of features, such as whole-home digital-video recording, high-performance user interfaces and photo and music sharing.
The "TV" in IPTV
A major theme of the show was the ability to send online video or applications directly to the TV, bypassing the need for a set-top box altogether. This could become important for online IPTV services like Joost N.V. and for new video-distribution services like NBC Universal Inc.’s Hulu portal. It could also change the telco IPTV landscape, particularly if it eliminates the need for DVRs, although this would likely not be seen for quite some time. Sharp Corp., Samsung Group and Panasonic Corp. all made announcements on this topic.
Sharp’s new AQUOS Net service will use on-screen widgets to deliver information such as weather, stock quotes and other news directly from the Internet to AQUOS LCD HDTVs. The TVs will come with built-in Ethernet plugs, and the company announced several powerline-networking adapters to stream the content around the home to the TV as an alternative. The company said it also hopes to deliver video in the near future.
Samsung announced a similar offering in a partnership with USA Today: It will send news stories and other content from the paper’s site to Samsung’s new Series 6 and Series 7 LCD and plasma HDTVs via an Ethernet connection. Samsung also offers an add-on allowing the TVs to receive Internet video.
The biggest announcement in this space comes from Panasonic, whose new VIERA PZ850 series Plasma HDTVs will enable viewers to browse and watch videos from YouTube and view photos from their Picasa Web Albums, a free, online photo-sharing service — both services are owned by Google. The Internet-connected HDTVs are expected to be available in spring 2008.
Set-Top Boxes RIP?
In other news, Sling Media Inc.’s SlingCatcher was finally revealed — a set-top box that delivers broadcast TV, Internet content and personal media to the TV. The SlingCatcher includes three built-in applications: SlingPlayer for TV, SlingProjector and SlingSync. SlingPlayer for TV offers the ability to send programming to another TV in the home or to a TV in a remote location without a PC. SlingProjector enables viewers to project Internet and PC-based digital content, such as downloaded movies or YouTube videos, directly to the TV. SlingSync gives users the ability to sync files over their network connections and store them on third-party USB flash drives or other portable hard drives attached to their SlingCatchers, giving them the ability to use the SlingCatchers to replay content on demand and manage content from PCs via the SlingCatcher user interface.
D-Link Corp. also announced a media player that allows a user to stream Web-based content available on his or her PC to a TV, either wired or wirelessly , without the need for a proprietary media player. Virtually any local video content can be sent to and viewed on a TV using a media player such as iTunes, Nero, Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.
Whether set-top boxes will become obsolete remains to be seen, but the development of Internet-enabled TVs is worth watching. As more consumers want content delivered to the living room, such developments are not surprising. More advanced solutions will come, and IPTV players will want a piece of the action.
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