Toshiba announced it will start selling its second generation of 4K TV sets next spring.
The TVs — which at 3,840 by 2,160 pixels, have four times the resolution of HD — will include an 84-inch model and two in the 50- to 60-inch range, according to Toshiba executive Masahiko Fukakushi.
Toshiba’s first generation 55-inch 4K TV is currently available in Japan for 750,000 yen ($9,650). Sony recently announced it will also offer its 84-inch 4K model in November for 1.68 million yen.
One potential obstacle involves the lack of 4K content. While the movie industry has started a shift to 4K, there’s no delivery mechanism in place for 4K televisions.
“TV broadcasters have only recently spent billions of dollars upgrading to high definition and a further upgrade to 4K would mean most of their new equipment will have to be scrapped so that’s unlikely,” reports CIO. “The Blu-ray Disc format hasn’t been extended to 4K either.”
In the meantime, Toshiba has been working on custom chips for up-conversion that may prove a short term solution. According to the post: “The quality isn’t the same as if the original 4K content was viewed, but it’s better than HD, said Toshiba.”
For consumers looking to upgrade their HDTV to a Smart TV without purchasing a new set, the recently announced SmartStick by FAVI is one option.
“The SmartStick looks just like your average thumb drive, but it actually plugs into your HDMI input,” reports Digital Trends. “Once there it edifies your TV and allows you to utilize the newest Android OS to download apps or browse the Web.”
SmartStick does not include a keypad remote, but FAVI is marketing a mini wireless keyboard with touchpad as an add-on.
“With the SmartStick, the HDMI connector is built right on the stick which plugs directly into your HDTV with no cables or confusing adapters,” explains the FAVI site. “The DC power is supplied over a Mini-USB port, and the included Mini-USB to USB connection is just the right length, to reach the USB port already on your HDTV.”
The new device offers access to services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Flixster, Spotify, Pandora, Facebook and more. It also includes a Web Browser and 4GB flash memory.
The 4GB Wi-Fi version of the SmartStick is available for pre-order for $49 ($79 for 8GB) and is expected to ship by the end of October. The wireless keyboard is an additional $39.
Kevin Sintumuang writes about the benefits of viewing video on a tablet and introduces add-ons that improve the experience.
“I’m not claiming an iPad beats the big screen,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal, “but I will say this: Watching shows and movies on a tablet feels closer to what television viewing should be like in the 21st century than what 21st-century TVs actually deliver.”
Smart TVs that offer access to streaming services often feel sluggish, he notes. “Devices that help bridge the gap between Internet-based content and your living room’s television, like Apple TV and the Xbox 360, are pretty excellent, but once you’ve become accustomed to the speed and intimacy of using something like an iPad to watch your shows and films, it’s hard to deal with tech that’s not as responsive.”
Sintumuang suggests that portability and functionality puts the tablet ahead of the television — while apps from networks and providers offer all the content a viewer needs. He also lists the gear and apps required for the best experience.
Essential apps: Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Fanhattan, HBO GO. For live TV, he recommends apps from Dish, DirecTV, ESPN and Disney. Attaching a Slingbox to your cable box is another option with the $30 SlingPlayer app.
Essential gear for upgrading the A/V: Optomo ML500 projector ($599), Logitech UE Boombox rechargeable speaker ($100-250), Klipsch Image ONE Bluetooth headphones ($250).
NBCUniversal, Comcast and HBO announced partnerships with Zeebox yesterday, a second screen app designed to augment the TV viewing experience.
NBC and Comcast join British Sky Broadcasting as investors in the startup, which launched in the UK last January and is now available as an Android, iOS and Web app here in the States.
The free app acts as a program guide that lets users know which shows are being viewed or discussed by friends. It also features Facebook and Twitter integration. Broadcasters can create a digital hub for programs that includes videos, games, polls, chatrooms and more.
“Like Shazam, it will extend its second screen experience to advertisements. Unlike Shazam, it will share revenue from enhanced commercials with all broadcasters,” reports Fast Company. “Adding a mobile component to a commercial can nudge consumers toward action (think ‘buy this now’ buttons) in a way that television ads can’t.”
For consumers, Zeebox replaces GetGlue as a means of sharing what you’re watching with friends — and replaces Google when you are searching for info about celebrities.
“Zeebox isn’t the most appealing second-screen product we’ve seen — it seems more like a mishmash of everything anyone could ever want to do in front of a television rather than a solution to a specific problem or desire — but by appeasing broadcasters, it has set itself up to be among the most popular,” notes the article.
Dish Network is in discussions with Viacom, Univision and Scripps regarding an over-the-top service that would deliver live cable TV via the Internet.
“Dish Network’s service would change the dynamics of the pay television business, breaking up the bundles that force customers to pay for channels they don’t watch,” reports Businessweek.
With a smaller bundle, the service would be priced lower than what consumers pay for cable TV. Dish would also be able to bypass sports, its biggest programming expense.
Sources suggest that Viacom might be willing to sell a smaller bundle of channels at a higher rate-per-channel than it does for full packages it offers to cable and satellite operators. The bundle would include Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.
“The effort would mark the biggest attempt to create an online service with live cable channels, a break from the approach taken by Netflix Inc. and Hulu LLC,” notes the article.
“For Dish, the move would decrease its reliance on its satellite-TV service, which ranks second to DirecTV in U.S. customers. It also gives it a way to undercut pay TV competitors on price.”
It’s worth noting that pay TV operators including Dish and Time Warner Cable currently offer cheaper packages without sports, but they are not typically popular with consumers.
U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, PNC and Wells Fargo have been the target of cyber attacks this week from what is believed to be a group outside the country, says an unidentified U.S. official.
The attacks have flooded the bank websites with traffic, making them unavailable at times and disrupting transactions. The group is reportedly using a method known as distributed denial-of-service and has taken control of commercial servers.
“Such a sustained network attack ranks among the worst-case scenarios envisioned by the National Security Agency, according to the U.S. official, who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak publicly,” reports Businessweek. “The extent of the damage may not be known for weeks or months, said the official, who has access to classified information.”
“The nature of this attack is sophisticated enough or large enough that even the largest of the financial institutions would find it difficult to defend against,” suggests Rodney Joffe, senior VP at security firm Neustar Inc.
“The notable thing is the volume and the scale of the traffic that’s been directed at these sites, and that’s very rare,” adds Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and CTO of security firm CrowdStrike Inc.
Cybersecurity specialists who have been tracking the assaults say that by breaching some of the nation’s most advanced computer systems, the attacks have exposed the vulnerability of its infrastructure.
“If the financial industry, which spends more on Internet security than any other industry and has its largest and most extensive defenses, can’t handle this, it’s not clear whether any critical-infrastructure industry can,” notes the article.
Since the questionable call by replacement referees in the final moments of Monday night’s Seahawks-Packers game, the National Football League has been taking a beating on Twitter.
“According to social media firm NetBase, the NFL’s negative sentiment rating during the last 24 hours has come in at 76 percent,” reported Adweek at 2:30 PM ET on Tuesday, “compared to 27 percent it averaged this month through September 23. The data-point entails millions of messages on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other sites.”
Despite increasing negative sentiment noted around terms such as “NFL” and “refs,” league officials suggest they are more concerned about TV ratings than social media chatter.
But with everyone from players to President Obama posting frustrated tweets in response, experts are divided as to whether the NFL will be able to keep ignoring angry Twitter users.
“While social media helps cultivate and expose the amount of frustration, the reality is, the NFL brand is so strong, it is unlikely we will see a negative backlash of fan support in the coming weeks,” says Ken Wisnefski, CEO of WebiMax.
“I agree that it is a major mistake to have a wrong call especially in this fashion, thus there is an opportunity for the League and [NFL commissioner] Goodell to express their support for the quality of the product and work to resolve this immediately,” he adds.
Consumers are often disappointed when it comes to their favorite brands’ mobile-optimized sites, according to a study commissioned by Google.
While 72 percent expect sites to work well on their mobile devices, almost all consumers have discovered sites that are not mobile-friendly.
More than half of consumers say a bad site hurts their perception of the brand and forces them to shop elsewhere, and 67 percent say that an optimized site encourages purchases.
“While some [of the findings] seem obvious, the data provide a wake-up call,” notes Jason Spero, Google’s head of global mobile sales and strategy.
Consumer expectations seem rather simple. For example, 76 percent merely want the sites to fit the mobile screen.
“Seventy-six percent of consumers said they want to be able to find a company’s location or operating hours,” reports Adweek.
“Sixty-one percent said they’d like to click a button to call a company, and 54 percent would like the ability to send an email,” explains the article. “And while the user may be visiting a brand’s mobile site, 53 percent said they’d like to be able to download its mobile app through the site.”
Barnes & Noble announced its plans to launch a new video service in the U.S. this fall for Nook tablets (followed by a holiday release in the UK).
Nook Video will be a streaming and download service that offers film and TV content from HBO, Disney, Sony, Starz, Viacom and Warner Bros. Other top studios will reportedly be joining soon.
Barnes & Noble is also developing free apps that will allow users to access the service on other tablets, smartphones and connected TVs.
Content downloaded from the Nook Store will be stored in a cloud-based digital locker, allowing users to stop and resume viewing from any supported device.
“Nook Video will also integrate a customer’s compatible physical DVD and Blu-ray Disc purchases and digital video collection across their devices through UltraViolet,” explains the press release.
“Customers will soon be able to easily link their UltraViolet accounts to the Nook Cloud allowing them to view their previously and newly purchased UltraViolet-enabled movies and TV shows across Nook devices and Nook Video apps, as well as through third party applications,” adds the release.
Approximately 90 U.S. television stations are already transmitting Mobile DTV signals.
The Open Mobile Video Coalition held a press conference on Capitol Hill announcing that local Mobile DTV will roll out by 130 stations in 50 markets during the next few months.
Speakers at the event included several politicians; Derek McGinty of WUSA-TV in Washington; Lynn Claudy, senior VP of technology for NAB and Eric Moreno, senior VP of corporate development with Fox Networks.
“Among Moreno’s points of discussion was the advent of the new Samsung Galaxy S Lightway 4G handset, the first smartphone to come with a preloaded Dyle TV app,” reports TVTechnology.
“It is available in 12 markets where TV stations are now transmitting Dyle-branded signals, that costs north of $400; as well as what are known as ‘dongles,’ which the industry will rely on to further boost the use of the technology.” The small plug-in antennas from Belkin and Elgato will run about $100.
It will cost approximately $125,000 for stations to set up for Mobile DTV transmissions.
“There are 64 million iPhones and iPads in use in the U.S.,” Moreno explained. “If you reach 1 percent penetration, you’ve got yourself a business.”
“This is the culmination of a number of years of work from disparate sectors of the television industry,” added Claudy, “that marks the start of a new broadcast service. Now we have to convince the entirety of the industry to use it and the market to adopt it.”
“Cybergeddon,” a new digital movie from Anthony Zuiker, starring Olivier Martinez and Missy Peregrym, premieres today online.
The film follows two special agents and a hacker as they attempt to save the world from cyber-attacks launched by e-terrorists.
“Cybergeddon” is debuting exclusively on the Yahoo! Screen video site in more than 25 countries and 10 languages. It is broken down into nine chapters, three of which will be released over the next three days.
A custom site features a more in-depth look at the characters, on-set photos, behind-the-scenes clips, and interviews with the cast and crew.
As reported earlier on ETCentric, producers turned to Norton by Symantec to consult on issues related to online security. The film’s site hosts a special section in which users can learn more about cyber-crime. The company also plays a significant role in the story.
“This isn’t the kind of product placement in which a company’s car or navigation system is used by the heroine — this is the kind in which a sponsor is turned into a heroic character,” reports The New York Times.
Coinstar’s Redbox and Verizon Communications plan to launch their Netflix competitor, Redbox Instant by Verizon, in time for the Christmas holiday season.
The new service aims to take on Netflix and Amazon with a monthly subscription plan, the option to digitally rent or purchase movies or get them from any Redbox kiosk.
Movie fans will be able to stream the content on multiple connected devices, as the joint venture (65 percent owned by Verizon) plans to launch mobile apps for iOS, Android and other mobile operating systems.
Redbox and Verizon say they will pay content providers based on number of subscribers, rather than Netflix’s model of paying a fixed amount for streaming rights over specific time periods.
“The U.S. market for subscription streaming rose fivefold to $1.1 billion in the first half of 2012 from a year earlier, according to data from the Hollywood studio-backed Digital Entertainment Group,” reports Bloomberg.
“Verizon Communications Inc. agreed to pay more than $510 million to end patent-infringement suits filed by TiVo Inc. and ActiveVideo Networks Inc. that targeted features of its FiOS TV service,” according to Bloomberg.
Verizon is expected to pay TiVo at least $250 million to end the dispute over DVR services. The New York-based company will also pay CloudTV developer ActiveVideo more than $260 million over the VOD feature.
As part of the agreement, Verizon will also pay license fees for “every Verizon DVR subscriber beyond a predetermined level.”
The trial was scheduled to start in a Texas federal court next week. TiVo was claiming three patent infringements, including one involving the time warp system that was the basis for the legal battle with Dish, settled last year.
Had TiVo won the case, Verizon could have been forced to remove DVR service from FiOS TV (Dish had been ordered to remove the function prior to its settlement).
“[Verizon] reported having 4.5 million FiOS Video connections at the end of the second quarter,” notes the article. “The wireline division, which includes the FiOS TV, phone and Internet services, generated $40.7 billion in sales last year and FiOS accounted for 65 percent of that division’s profit.”
PayDragon initially targeted L.A. food carts when it launched earlier this year as a mobile payment and order pickup solution for those wanting to avoid lines. Now the mobile payments app is going national with its one-click shopping tool called Checkout.
“Checkout gives PayDragon users the ability to buy grocery store items and non-perishable goods that hit the doorstep two days later, with no shipping fees and no minimum order requirement,” explains Digital Trends.
“We started with food trucks and beating that line,” says CEO and founder Hamilton Chan. “It’s called internally displaced purchasing.”
Users can scan an item with Checkout’s barcode reader and order it (there’s also a search feature if the barcode isn’t readily available). “Chan describes it as a great reorder method,” notes the post. “See that almost-empty toothpaste container in your bathroom? Scan, order, and it’ll be on your front step in two days.”
More than 40 L.A. restaurants and food carts are already using the app with a reported 60 percent return rate. PayDragon sees sports stadiums as a logical next step, where fans can use the app for ordering from their seats and avoiding lines. But first, the primary objective is increased consumer traction.
“We feel like people haven’t cracked the nut about mobile payments, so we just want to get people to use mobile to buy everyday things,” says Chan. “We intend to make money longer term, and use that consumer affinity to move products for brands and manufacturers.”
Shazam announced it is expanding its second-screen service in the U.S. to support nearly all channels with a new focus on Facebook and Twitter integration. The company also announced that it has exceeded a quarter of a billion users globally.
“In addition to expanding Shazam for TV, Shazam is also enhancing its social features for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android devices,” notes the press release. “When Shazamers activate the Shazam Friends feature in the app, they can see what their Facebook friends are tagging, and now they will be able to make comments about their friends’ tags in the app.”
“With the activation, people’s tags will appear on their Facebook profile in their timeline, enabling people to discuss with their friends in Facebook what they are watching or listening to,” explains the release.
As a second-screen tool, Shazam users can access information related to featured music, cast members, related trivia, celebrity buzz and more. It can be also be used during sports broadcasts to access scores, stats and schedules.
“According to industry studies, 86 percent of smartphone owners use their mobile device while watching TV and, with our expansion into television, we’ve seen a surge of activity due to recent Shazam-enabled events such as the NBC Olympic broadcast, where more than one million people tagged the closing ceremony,” explains Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher.
“We think that broadening our television service and offering more comprehensive social features will continue to drive activity and engagement,” he adds.
