Blog articles from 12/2008

Parks Associates survey identifies features driving demand for new digital cameras and mobile phones... A new study from international research firm Parks Associates finds consumer demand for networking features will drive the next wave of consumer electronics purchasing, particularly for imaging and mobile devices such as digital cameras, photo frames, and mobile phones. Digital Media Evolution, a new survey from Parks Associates, finds nearly 50% of U.S. broadband households want...

I guess it's obligatory that we in the analyst and press community need to come up with our "Top-Whatever" lists of the key trends, key products, etc. from either the year just ending or for 2009. It definitely does help to distill the main news and hot items for the year into some easily digestible deliverables ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show next week. In fact, the Parks Associates' analysts got together a couple of weeks ago to deliver a Webcast titled 2008: A Digital...

I've been trying to keep up-to-date on developments in the home tech support space in 2008, and when I wrote awhile back that the remote support space in particular is very dynamic, I wasn't kidding! Not only are industry giants like Cisco, Dell, and Intel all making moves, but we're seeing consolidation. I had heard about possible goings-on with HiWired, but it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what was happening. A former HiWired employee has kept a blog , however, and noted the...

I had mentioned Cisco's emphasis on the consumer market at the C-Scape event. I will say that one disappointment from the event was a lack of news regarding what the Scientific-Atlanta side of the business is doing. It seemed like Cisco talked headend, edge, and consumer retail products more than anything else and left out any real discussion on service provider CPE trends. Maybe they'll rectify that at CES. According to a couple of news articles today, the first iteration of...

I followed up with some of the principals involved in the IEEE P1901 and ITU-T G.9960 (G.hn) work last week to clarify a few points. These requests followed a briefing with the folks with MoCA, who have grievances about the ITU process and the decision that was reached in December to approve the foundation document. Here are some of the primary issues that the MoCA folks wanted to air: 1. They note that this is still an uncompleted specification, noting that no MAC agreement has been...

News today that the Netflix Player now supports high-definition streams. A software update will be sent to the $99 boxes already in homes in the next few weeks. Roku says that more high-definition content providers will be added in the first quarter of 2009. I've got to think that this box is going to be under a few Christmas trees on Thursday morning.

Why can I not get "Dueling Banjos" out of my head right now? Following up the news that the ITU has approved PHY specs for the ITU-T G.9960 (formerly known as the G.hn work), the IEEE (and HomePlug /Intellon in particular) are touting their own success in establishing a single powerline specification. Are we there yet? We'll see - I've tapped some contacts at DS2 to see if they have some comment.

We've been making trips up the Dallas North Tollway to visit the folks at Prodea Systems for more than two years. We've been waiting for the company to come out from under the radar, because up until now, they are most well-known for having been founded by Anousheh, Hamid and Amir Ansari, the founders of Telecom Technologies, which was sold to Sonus Networks. Anousheh was a "space tourist" on the International Space Station in late 2006. Prodea looks to make a splash...