Blog articles from 05/2008

I got a press release from the Microsoft Mediaroom team this week, and it looks as thought they're making it easier for third-party developers to build services and features on top of their IPTV framework. A beta version of the Microsoft Mediaroom Presentation Framework was released to selected companies this week. The Presentation Framework Beta was released to nearly 150 companies globally including content providers, application developers and its service provider customers such...

The folks at NXP Semiconductors saw my blog from the other day and wanted to make sure that I was aware that they were powering the streaming functionality of the set-top box. The company has a reference design called the Nexperia Network Media Player. By the way, I found some awesome Flickr photos of some cakes that were created for the launch celebration for the Roku player. Talk about some great industrial design!

In late March, there was a rumor going around that Netflix was working with Microsoft to enable the Watch Now streaming video feature through the Xbox 360. Although that still remains a rumor, Netflix did make another public announcement today that continues its push to place broadband video at the TV. Today, Roku introduced the Netflix Player by Roku, a device that enables Netflix subscribers to instantly stream a growing library of movies and TV episodes from Netflix directly to...

New U.S. consumer research has identified a “super buying” segment of broadband households responsible for the overwhelming majority of dollars spent on consumer electronics products. The Changing Consumer Electronics Purchase Process , a survey of 2,500 broadband households, found roughly 25% of broadband households spent $2,000 or more on CE products in the past 12 months. This amounts to 80% of all expenditure on CE products made by broadband households. This “Super...

5 a.m. is awfully early, but my ears perked up during National Public Radio’s newscast this morning. The American Customer Satisfaction Index has come out with its latest customer satisfaction survey , and it’s a bit of good news/bad news for the cable and satellite television companies. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) goes to 100 and is based on the degree to which the customer is satisfied with his or her service. This year’s study finds that satellite...

Growing up I remember dreading house cleaning day. I would get my list of assigned chores and drag my feet. (I'm sure that I was not the only one doing this.) As an adult, it is not only the household chores that can get us down, but the new digital chores that have crept into our lives as well. We have to make sure our firewall, spyware blocker, antivirus software, etc. is all up-to-date. In order to ensure we have up-to-date security, most programs automatically take care of this for...

Home controls have largely remained confined to the upper strata of new home construction for decades. However, new approaches incorporating wireless and powerline technologies, a migration of traditional suppliers to IP-based systems and, perhaps most importantly, the entry of key market movers are driving change. Bill Ablondi , Director of Home Systems Research, Parks Associates will present new research, forecasts and analysis during a webcast on Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 1:00...

May 2008 is definitely a dark month for the muni-wireless advocates. After EarthLink pulled the plug on its Philadelphia municipal WiFi network last week, MetroFi also indicated a sale signaling an end of its muni-WiFi initiatives in nine cities, including many Silicon Valley towns. By now, almost all major city muni-WiFi projects have died. You may wonder that when broadband activities are more embedded in our lives than ever before and Wi-Fi networks are gaining widespread adoption both...