TP Vision, a joint venture of Philips and TPV, is adding cloud services to its line of Internet-connected TVs through a new cloud platform from IBM. The announcement was made during the recent IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin.
The IBM cloud service will be made available to millions of television viewers in 30 European countries, Brazil and Argentina.
“As the Internet and smart devices continue to infiltrate home entertainment, today’s consumer electronics manufacturers are looking to deliver new interactive entertainment services,” said Bruce Anderson, GM of IBM’s global electronics industry.
“Televisions are about to become the next open application platform, similar to the application platforms on mobile devices,” he added. “Organizations are turning to the IBM cloud as the channel for their innovation.”
Separately, IBM is also joining forces with Vodafone to offer “smarter home” services for home appliances.
It’s been five years since Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the very first Kindle device in New York City.
“On Thursday, September 6, Bezos will again speak to the media, this time in Santa Monica, California, and the stakes will again be sky high,” reports Businessweek.
Last year, Amazon expanded the franchise with its launch of the $199 Kindle Fire, which made an initial commercial splash.
“But the Kindle Fire was also something of a critical disappointment, with its chunky weight, bland industrial design, and lack of basic features like a camera and volume controls,” suggests the article. “For the first time, many customers bought a device from Amazon and felt they didn’t get much value from it.”
The tablet landscape is getting rougher with this summer’s launch of the Nexus 7 from Google and the new iPad Mini expected this fall.
“If tablets are to be an important gateway to music, movies, e-books, and games — media products that make up half of Amazon’s overall business — Bezos is going to have to build a much deeper moat,” suggests Businessweek.
Since the event is being held in Los Angeles, we might hear news regarding Amazon’s video ambitions, perhaps from its L.A.-based content creation arm, Amazon Studios. We might also receive news regarding the long-rumored Amazon phone, an Amazon set-top box or a move away from Google’s Android to run the Kindle Fire, suggests the article.
Amazon is expected to announce new versions of its Kindle tablets at a press event in Santa Monica on Thursday. The location suggests the announcement could include a video-related improvement for the Kindle tablets.
Seth Porges of Forbes speculates that Amazon may plan to announce a major expansion of its Amazon Prime video service. But TechCrunch reports that “an expanded Amazon Prime library doesn’t make much sense,” because Amazon has successfully grown the service with slow, steady additions.
Rather, TechCrunch suggests Amazon could target its existing partnership with UltraViolet. UltraViolet integration would greatly increase the video content available on Kindle devices.
Amazon could replicate Vudu’s disc-to-digital agreement, whereby users can bring DVDs to Walmart stores and convert the titles to digital copies for $2 to $5.
And TechCrunch speculates Amazon could go even further with the program by converting archived DVD purchase information into digital copies. Users would not have to go to a physical store — they would simply click and pay.
The struggle for seasonal and small mom-and-pop theaters to survive may become more challenging as the industry completes its transition to digital.
“20th Century Fox promises to phase out film by the end of next year, and the others are expected to follow,” reports The New York Times.
John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, notes that 30,000 screens have been converted to Digital Cinema, while 10,000 remain in different stages of transition.
For a small cinema, the $75,000 cost of a digital projector can exceed an entire year’s profits, making it difficult to convince banks to provide a loan.
Some independent exhibitors are taking donations from patrons for upgrades, considering a retro approach to keep 35mm film alive, or closing their doors. Others are waiting on possible state grants and considering whether to sign a joint financing agreement.
“Devised through negotiations between the national theater owners group and the major studios, these Virtual Print Fee agreements entail per-movie payments from distributors for running their movies,” explains NYT. “For distributors, these givebacks are more affordable than striking film prints, and for theaters that qualify (because of limited grosses, many seasonal ones don’t), these payments can help pay off bank loans or leases.”
However, the agreements include constraints such as what films can be shown and how often.
“A majority of Americans (54 percent) claim to never use cloud computing. However, 95 percent of this group actually does use the cloud,” reports Citrix per a national survey they commissioned.
The survey results show that many Americans acknowledge the significance of cloud computing, that they even use it for a variety of purposes, and yet they have almost no clue what it is.
“When asked what ‘the cloud’ is, a majority responded it’s either an actual cloud (specifically a ‘fluffy white thing’), the sky or something related to the weather (29 percent). Only 16 percent said they think of a computer network to store, access and share data from Internet-connected devices,” the press release states, adding that other responses varied from “toilet paper” to “outerspace” to “oh goody, a hacker’s dream.”
Despite this confusion, 22 percent of the 1,000 surveyed by Wakefield Research admitted to acting as if they knew what the cloud is or how it works. Also, 56 percent of respondents said they’ve had cloud conversations with others who didn’t really know what they were talking about.
Even though they may be unaware the services are cloud based, many people reported using online banking, shopping, social networking, online gaming and online storage or file-sharing.
“Even though many Americans don’t know exactly what the cloud does, they see its silver lining,” the release states. “Most Americans (68 percent) recognize the economic benefits after learning more about the cloud. The most recognized benefits are that the cloud helps consumers by lowering costs (35 percent), spurs small business growth (32 percent) and boosts customer engagement for businesses (35 percent). Millennials are most likely to believe that the cloud generates jobs (26 percent Millennials, 19 percent Boomers).”
BuzzFeed’s latest Social Intelligence Report describes Reddit as “a monster for traffic referrals,” while arguing that Pinterest may be little more than a “social gimmick.”
“In July, Reddit set a new page views record, topping 3.1 billion for the month,” reports Adweek. “Yet even more impressive is the jump that publishers in the BuzzFeed Network saw in Reddit referrals, which increased by 64 percent from June to July.”
“The report also shows that StumbleUpon, the long-reigning king of traffic referrals to the network, continues to fall, which suggests that Reddit’s socially sharable content may be taking users away from the browsing platform.”
About 114,000 referrals came from Pinterest, according to the report, significantly below the service’s 400,000-referral peak in April.
“Things aren’t all gloomy for Pinterest though,” notes Adweek. “The site has seen a 200 percent increase in referral traffic throughout its first full year of public operation.”
The article suggests that online publishers and advertisers should note the referral trends as a crucial shift: “By a large margin, the success of content from sites like Reddit to generate referral traffic stems from how well it resonates on an emotional level with an audience.”
“The trend of publishers creating engaging content that understands and connects in a meaningful way with an audience may be a reaction to the previous, more robotic era of search-optimized content, but it has proven results to draw viewers as denizens of the Web exhibit a growing dependence on social networks,” concludes the post.
The development team at search engine Bing has created a new feature that allows users to browse friends’ Facebook photo albums and search for specific images via keywords.
“Called the Friends’ Photo feature, any Facebook user can visit www.bing.com/friendsphotos and log into Facebook in order to enable access to photo albums,” reports Digital Trends. “The most recent photos posted by your friends will appear in a large thumbnail format on the screen similar to the layout of Pinterest.”
“Each photo can be clicked to open up a version at a larger resolution,” notes the post. “In addition, comments about the photo are loaded on the right side of the page. The user has the ability to add a comment, like or share the photo as well as open up the photo on Facebook.”
While the real advantage to this functionality on Bing is the search bar, it is worth noting that a successful search via keywords is reliant upon effective tagging and adequate descriptions.
“According to Bing, the Friends’ Photo feature doesn’t work with Facebook users that have blocked photos from being accessed by third-party applications,” explains the post. “Facebook users can edit this setting by visiting the Privacy Settings page and clicking on ‘Edit Settings’ in the ‘Ads, Apps and Websites’ row.”
Facebook doesn’t run a mobile operating system, thus it has no alliance to a specific platform. So when it was deciding how best to push apps to all devices, it opted for HTML5 over building numerous platform-specific apps.
“With that one decision — which makes sense when you think about the various pluses and minuses of the different options — it made its original Facebook app perhaps the most hated mobile app ever,” opines Eric Jackson of The Street.
Just as HTML “allowed one common language to proliferate” in the early days of the Web, “HTML5 and its advocates believed the same thing would happen in the mobile Internet,” the article explains.
“Mobile developers wouldn’t want to do all the work to build different versions of the same mobile apps. So they’d all opt for HTML5 as a programming language.”
But in Facebook’s case, the app turned out buggy and slow, often crashing. While HTML5 seemed like a good decision — and could be the best option in the future — it failed for Facebook in the present. And it took years to fix that mistake.
The post suggests the bad app not only frustrated users, but also caused the social giant to lose mobile momentum while its rival Twitter took off.
While Windows 8 is receiving high praise for its tablet experience, “many feel that the operating system’s ‘Modern-style’ UI makes life more difficult for PC users,” according to a Laptop review.
Usability expert Raluca Budiu of the Nielsen Norman Group “has used the new OS enough to conclude that, for productivity tasks on the PC at least, Windows 8 is less user friendly than its predecessors,” notes the review.
“Windows 8 is optimized for content consumption rather than content production and multitasking,” says Budiu. “Whereas content consumption can easily be done on other media (tablets and phones), production and multitasking are still best suited for PCs. Windows 8 appears to ignore that.”
Budiu goes into further detail throughout the Q&A, explaining her issues with start-up menus, displays and functionality.
“Users will need to remember two different interfaces,” she notes. “They will learn Windows 8, but won’t be able to forget Windows 7. And they will need to keep track of which app goes with each framework. [It’s] definitely a cognitive burden, but not an insurmountable one.”
Nokia has scheduled a September 5th launch event to debut its new Windows Phone 8 devices. For those who can’t wait, a set of photos has been leaked that are rumored to be the new phones.
“Reportedly named the Lumia 820 and the Lumia 920 with PureView, photos of the latest Nokia phones have appeared on a random Twitter account called evleaks,” reports Digital Trends. “Possibly a stunt by Nokia’s own PR team or the work of a rather sneaky individual, the photos showcase a pair of gorgeous new smartphones.”
If the photos are accurate, the two Lumia devices will feature “the boldly colored, polycarbonate design of Nokia’s original Windows Phone 7.5 offerings,” a 4.3-inch screen for the 820 and 4.5-inch screen for the 920, PureView camera technology and Carl Zeiss optical lenses.
“We’re really hoping these leaks turn out to be the real thing,” notes Digital Trends. “An LTE-equipped smartphone sporting PureView technology is exactly what Windows Phone needs right now, a device to compete with other flagships. Add Nokia’s brand recognition, useful applications, and sharp design and Windows Phone 8 may just be able to take its place beside iOS and Android.”
In a related report from Reuters, “Samsung Electronics became the first handset maker to announce a smartphone using Microsoft’s latest mobile software, making its surprise, hurried announcement just days before the highly anticipated launch of Nokia’s version.”
Samsung’s brief announcement at Berlin’s IFA show regarding the new ATIV S Windows phone — with a 4.8-inch display, 8-megapixel rear camera and Corning Gorilla glass — “comes amid expectations that smartphone makers may turn increasingly to Windows devices after a U.S. jury decided many of Samsung’s Google Android-based phones infringed Apple Inc. patents,” suggests Reuters.
Chinese consumer electronics company Haier demonstrated its Eye-Control TV at the IFA show.
“To use the set, you sit in front of a black rectangular sensor positioned at chest height,” reports Engadget. “There’s some calibration involved when moving from person to person, chasing a circle around the screen with your eyes. Once calibrated, you’re good to go.”
The user’s eyes move up and down and/or blink in order to change channels, adjust volume and perform other basic television controls. Eye movements are also used to access and navigate the user interface featuring pictures of videos.
“The use of pictures certainly seems the most intuitive method for navigating around videos — there’s a definite learning curve here, and it’s hard enough to select pictures — we couldn’t really imagine toggling through small text,” notes the post.
“This doesn’t feel quite ready for market — it’s a compelling concept, nonetheless,” suggests Engadget. “And using the human eye to control a display that you’re already staring at anyway does seem to have some merits.”
The post includes a 2-minute video demo of the retina-controlled system from the IFA show floor.
At the IFA show, Windows-enabled devices are changing the image of traditional PCs to take advantage of the new hybrid operating system.
“First are the straight tablets, which are primarily intended for use by themselves but often come with keyboard docks or cases. Second are the convertible PCs, which are basically Ultrabooks that fold down into thick tablets as necessary. Third are the standard PCs that have some sort of token touch support built-in — this takes the form of laptops or all-in-ones with capacitive touchscreens,” reports Ars Technica.
Sony showcased its Vaio 11 Duo convertible PC that can be used as a tablet with a stylus and digitizer for handwritten input. “Despite being a convertible, the computer sacrifices some of its utility as a laptop to be a better tablet — the keyboard looks cramped, and it forgoes a standard trackpad in favor of a pointing stick-style mouse,” explains the article. Sony also showed its 20-inch Tap 20 all-in-one with a kickstand, which can be used as a giant tablet.
Samsung promoted the Series 5 Ultrabooks featuring touchscreens, the Series 5 and 7 all-in-ones with “Samsung’s ill-advised ‘Start Menu’ simulacrum,” and the Series 5 Slate with optional keyboard dock.
Asus brings the Vivo Tab with an Intel version including a stylus, Wacom digitizer, and keyboard dock with extra USB ports, trackpad and added battery life. The company’s UX21A Touch ultrabook adds a touchscreen.
Dell’s new XPS Duo 12 convertible PC has gotten some attention online for its interesting design; it has “a 12-inch 1080p LCD that you flip over before closing the lid to put it into tablet mode — there are magnets that keep the screen in place when it isn’t being flipped,” the article states.
Toshiba presented its Satellite U925t convertible Ultrabook and has two existing computers upgrading to Windows 8 touch.
At IFA 2012, Panasonic featured its 145-inch 8K plasma display panel that boasts image quality 16 times that of regular full HD.
“Developed in partnership with Japan’s NHK, the prototype is merely a proof of concept for the broadcaster’s planned 2020 launch of Super Hi Vision TV,” reports Engadget.
According to this review, the screen is “truly awe-inspiring,” with rich detail and no discernible pixels in view. No release date has been announced, but it’ll be a long while before this screen gets to mass market.
In a related post, Engadget reports that Panasonic also showed its new 103-inch demonstration display at IFA.
The plasma panel offers 3D to up to five different viewers, so long as they’re in the correct visual sweet spot. It is glasses-free with a 4K2K screen. Although the colors don’t quite pop when compared to Panasonic’s 145-inch 8K display, it’s still impressive, according to Engadget.
The posts include video and images from the Panasonic booth at IFA.
LG’s 55-inch OLED TV made its debut at last year’s CES in Las Vegas. It’s back at the IFA show in Berlin, but this time with 3D capability.
The sleek, 4-millimeter screen, complete with carbon fiber backing “looked great,” notes Engadget.
“At 55 inches, it’s no goliath compared to the 84-inch TVs we’ve seen this week from Sony, Toshiba and even LG, but the company claims this 55-inch model is the largest OLED HDTV available,” explains the post.
In related news, Engadget reports that LG touted some big products at IFA, including an 84-inch UD 3DTV and the 55-inch OLED HDTV, but it also has smaller items in its arsenal, like the 29-inch EA93.
“The company announced its 21:9 aspect ratio monitor, the 29-inch EA93, just prior to IFA. The IPS monitor boasts a WQHD resolution (2,560 x 1,080 pixels) and supports four-way split-screen view,” details Engadget.
The wide-screen aspect ratio is the same found in a movie theater, making this screen an ideal choice for viewing Blu-ray discs.
Both posts feature videos and slideshows form the LG booth at IFA.
LG, Philips and Toshiba are among the manufacturers working together on a common system for Internet-connected TVs.
At the IFA show in Berlin, manufacturers addressed “banding together to develop a common system that allows users to listen to music, watch videos and play games via the Internet on TV sets,” reports Bloomberg.
The companies are concerned about Apple and Google, which have made product forays into the online TV market. Additionally, Apple is rumored to be readying a new TV product.
“Apple and Google’s rise in the smartphone market has pushed Nokia and Research In Motion Ltd. to the brink,” notes Bloomberg. “Now, television makers are scrambling to make sure the same won’t happen to them.”
Meanwhile, Sony is betting on its 84-inch LCD TV that will feature 4K horizontal resolution, due in stores later this year.
“While current high-definition TVs have screens with 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels, the new TV has a screen with 3,840 pixels by 2,160 pixels,” reports Computerworld in a related article.
Since there will be a wait for native 4K content, Sony’s new set features an upscaler that will convert existing high-def images to 4K resolution through a software algorithm.
