Blog articles from 08/2008

Additional observations from Berlin, where the sky is cloudless and the air has that October feel and the beer is, well, flowing. After all, it is the weekend and anyone remotely curious about electronics has turned out to wander the 30 exhibit halls which make up a large rectangle around, what else, a Biergarten. The mood is festive at Messe Berlin and the halls teaming with dealers, press, company executives and families who have ventured out to see the latest gadgets. Admitting...

We wrapped up a very good CONNECTIONS Summit yesterday and were treated afterwards to a tour by the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute. At their IFA display, they showed their audio and video developments, including 3D television, pointer control solutions (cameras sense hand motion and allow users a way to interact with presententations and other video without a mouse), video compression and coding, digital music metadata, and other developments. It was quite interesting. I have...

Service providers are in a unique position to enter the e-Health space, which will grow to serve over seven million people in the U.S. and Europe by 2012, according to a new white paper from Parks Associates. These consumers range from seniors with chronic conditions to younger consumers who want to self-manage their personal health. e-Health Opportunities for Global Service Providers, released today on the research firm’s Website, outlines strategies and opportunities for service...

We were able to attend the ShowStoppers press reception on Wednesday evening in Berlin. The experts say that the best way to counteract jet lag is to hit the ground running. Based on the amount of walking we had to do to find the ShowStoppers reception area on the Messe Berlin grounds, I'd say we did pretty well in that category! ShowStoppers at IFA is a much smaller event than what you'd find in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show. Nonetheless, there were some...

We've set up shop in Berlin this week for our CONNECTIONS Europe Summit on Friday, and a visit to the IFA show over the weekend. According to a few articles in The New York Times this week, a big focus of IFA will be the "connected living room." This should be a continuation of the themes we heard at CES in January, as major consumer electronics manufacturers made a variety of connected device announcements. Another Times article indicates that the home server market may...

AT&T announced the launch of ConnectTech last Thursday. This support service will offer the following services: Custom installation of home theater and TV equipment. Flat-panel TV wall mounting and home video installation. Wall-mount speaker installation. New PC or Apple® computer installation and the startup of a home desktop or notebook, including e-mail, security configuration and device networking. PC repair service, including parts...

It's been a banner year for networked TV introductions, and we have another manufacturer on the board. Mitsubishi has announced a Living Fit TV line that uses the Amimon WDHI solution to wirelessly link an HDTV receiver to an LCD panel. This product will be available in the Japanese market. This TV win is apparently the second for the WHDI technology, which will also be used in the Sharp X Series televisions, also available to the Japanese market. With the Mitsubishi introduction, I...

While Europe has adopted a standard for mobile TV, this move actually makes it more difficult for operators to reap the benefits of this service sector, according to a new white paper from Parks Associates. The research firm released No Way to Regulate: Mobile TV in Europe for its upcoming CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit . This event will take place on August 28-29 at the Kempinski Hotel Bristol Berlin and features panels and interactive discussions on advanced entertainment platforms...