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  • Vizio Launches New HDTV Lineup, Starts With $250 Model


    Value HDTV brand Vizio has introduced 31 new models, including its first HDTV with 240-Hz technology and an LED backlight.

    The company also announced that it has filed a patent-infringement suit against LG Electronics, and that a similar case against Funai is continuing.

    Often bracketed as a second-tier brand compared to rivals such as Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba, Vizio has gained a reputation for its good-value sets, which often contain features on a par with more expensive models.

    The company continues in this vein with its new HDTV lineup, which splits into three lines – the XVT, M and E series – with prices beginning at USD $250 and climbing to USD $2,200.

    All the new models boast Energy Star 3.0 certification.

    The new range’s value line – the "E" series – offers TruSurround and some models come with EcoHD technology for reducing power levels below Energy Star 3.0 requirements.

    The "M" series – with the VL and the VT sub-categories – has a USB multimedia feature that can play back content stored on a thumb drive or USB drive.

    HDTVs also have a Pause Live TV feature, for caching segments of live TV broadcast. Each model has multiple HDMI inputs and some include a side HDMI port as well. The contrast ratio is 50,000:1.

    At the high end of the line are Vizio’s premier XVT sets. The flagship VF551XVT is the only one of Vizio’s HDTVs to include both an LED backlight as well as 240-Hz technology.

    All the XVT models include dedicated USB inputs, a 2,0000:1 contrast ratio, SRS TruSurround audio and TruVolume.

  • Panasonic Introduces HD Camcorders Weighing 0.5lbs, World's Lightest


    Panasonic has announced the release of two of what it describes as the lightest HD camcorders ever made.

    Each model weighs just 0.5lbs (0.2KG) but boasts high-powered 16x optical zoom capabilities and can shoot 1920 x 1080 Full-HD videos.

    The HDC-SD10 uses an SDHC/SD Memory Card as recording media while the Twin Memory Type HDC-TM10 records onto both an 8 GB Built-in Memory and an SDHC/SD Memory Card.

    The 16x optical zoom of the HDC-SD10 and HDC-TM10 is supported by the Advanced O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) function for clear zooming – it minimizes the hand-shake that often impairs video quality.

    Panasonic says its Advanced O.I.S. detects and corrects for hand-shake around 4,000 times per second and works with the optical zoom to produce clear, stable zoom shots.

    The new Active mode also extends the hand-shake correction range to allow the shooting of images while walking or moving.

    Chuck Kirkman, senior product manager, Imaging, Panasonic, said: "We recognize that users are looking for camcorders that capture high-quality, High Definition video, but they also want something lightweight that has advanced, yet easy-to-use functions."

    The suggested retail prices of the HDC-SD10 and HDC-TM10 are USD $549.95 and $599.95 respectively.Both will be available in September 2009.

  • US Transition to Digital TV Alters Viewing Behavior


    This Friday sees US television going 100 per cent digital, a move that has impacted on over a quarter of households which have had to invest in new TV sets and/or services to prepare for the June 12th changeover.

    However, researchers say that the switch to digital has changed traditional viewing habits.

    David Tice, vice president of Knowledge Networks, said its report, How People Use HDTV 2009, will show that one-third of those with high-definition TV reception always check their HD channels first when channel surfing or checking for a program.

    He said the digital transition is bringing more channels – sometimes dozens more – into nearly one-quarter of US TV households.

    This is vastly expanding the numbers of programs and advertisements they can be exposed to.

    "And our research has shown that having high-definition TV (HDTV) reception changes viewing behavior, prompting many people to check HD channels first when they sit down to watch TV," he said.

    "The result is that the digital transition as a whole seems destined to alter long-standing TV behaviors in many US homes."

    The report will also indicate that those with HDTV reception are more selective about what they watch and more likely to plan viewing in advance. KN will be releasing the new HDTV report in July.

    A separate report from Knowledge Networks has found that 26 per cent of US homes invested in new TV sets and/or services in the past year to prepare for the June 12th changeover.

    The data, collected from February to April this year, shows that among TV households:

    • 18 per cent said they had bought a digital converter to adapt a standard definition set to receive digital signals
    • 8 per cent bought a digital or HDTV set specifically in preparation for the transition
    • 5 per cent started a new subscription to a pay television service such as cable or satellite TV, also specifically in anticipation of the switch to digital

    (There is some overlap among the above groups; the net value is 26 per cent)

    Awareness of the transition has increased to 91 per cent of all TV homes, up from 85 per cent in 2008 and 45 per cent in 2007. All subgroups – whether by householder age, race, ethnicity, or reception type – report awareness over 90 per cent.

    Among the 18 per cent of TV homes that bought a digital converter, most (80 per cent) utilized the government coupon program. In homes that still have only broadcast reception, three times as many (53 per cent) report they bought a digital converter in the past year, and 93 per cent of those used the coupon program.

    The number of sets per home relying on regular broadcast reception averaged 0.48 in the new survey; this is almost two-thirds less compared with KN’s spring 2006 survey, when the average was 1.32.

    The report said that between their awareness of the transition and evidence of adaptation to this new broadcast standard, it is clear Americans have received the message about the transition loud and clear.

  • Microsoft Unveils Motion Control Technology – Project Natal


    Microsoft has just unveiled what it describes as a revolutionary new way to play Xbox 360 video games on HDTVs without the need for a controller.

    Called Project Natal, the sensor, which combines an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor in one device, could have uses far beyond just gaming.

    One analyst, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan, said he thought Project Natal is intended less as a game control scheme than it is as an easy-to-use dashboard control scheme.

    He also sees it as a means for Microsoft to dampen the launch of an expected high definition upgrade to Nintendo’s Wii console.

    Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, Project Natal tracks a user’s full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions and even a shift of emotion in the voice.

    The idea that the device could have an impact far beyond gaming was echoed by filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

    Introducing the device at the recent the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), he said it was a "pivotal moment that will carry with it a wave of change, the ripples of which will reach far beyond video games".

    Microsoft says that what sets the Project Natal sensor apart is the fact it’s not light-dependent. It can recognize users just by looking at their face, and it doesn’t just react to key words but understands what is being said.

    So, for example, if a user calls a play in a football game, players will actually respond.

    Spielberg said the next step in interactive entertainment is to make the controller disappear.

    "With Project Natal, we’ll see games that bring everyone together through technology that actually recognizes us," he said.

    During its briefing, signalled its strategy of turning the Xbox 360 into an internet and media hub for the living room by opening the Xbox Live dashboard up to the internet.

    It announced new Xbox LIVE services, including instant on 1080p HD streaming movies and television to Facebook and Last.fm tailor-made for a user’s TV.

    Starting this fall, a selection of movies and TV shows from Zune video on Xbox 360 will be available to start and stream instantly.

    Microsoft also announced it will more than double the number of markets where Xbox LIVE offers its TV shows and movies, growing from eight to 18, by adding Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

    Xbox LIVE members in these markets will have access to instant on 1080p video.

    New Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace advancements also came for the US,UK and Ireland.

    Microsoft also announced a new lineup of Xbox 360 games, including Forza Motorsport 3, Alan Wake, Halo 3: ODST and The Beatles: Rock Band.

    Below is a promotional video for Project Natal:

  • VoIP Equipment Sales Plummet, IMS Revenues Grow


    VoIP equipment purchases are decreasing at the expense of spending on the deployment of IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) technology, according to Infonetics Research.

    Worldwide sales of IMS equipment, including HSS (home subscriber servers), CSCF servers, and voice application servers, are forecast to jump 74 per cent in 2009 over 2008.

    However, worldwide VoIP revenue in Q1 totaled USD $600.4 million, down 33 per cent from the first quarter of 2008 – the sharpest quarterly decline ever.

    Diane Myers, directing analyst, Service Provider VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research, said no product segment or region was immune to declines in the service provider VoIP equipment market.

    Diane Myers, Infonetics Research

    Most large Tier 1 service providers are coming to the end of major VoIP projects and most ILECs and PTTs have put PSTN migration plans on hold.

    She said the service provider VoIP equipment market had a "rough" first quarter, declining 29 per cent sequentially in worldwide revenue. "The market pause for VoIP equipment is being exacerbated by the global economic downturn as service providers put VoIP equipment purchases on hold," she said.

    "We are beginning to see a noticeable shift in spending from stand-alone VoIP networks to IMS deployments."

    Myers said that while the core IMS equipment segments, CSCF and HSS, are still small compared to the service provider VoIP market, deployments remain strong in EMEA and Asia Pacific.

    Infonetics’ IMS Deployment Tracker shows Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens, and Huawei leading the way with core IMS equipment.

    "The core IMS equipment market had an impressive quarter with $63.7 million in revenue," she added.

  • SabSe Acquires Jaxtr, VoIP Consolidation Begins?


    SabSe Technologies has acquired jaxtr, a social communications company offering a free VoIP service.

    The value-added application provider aims to sell its apps to Jaxtr’s large active user base of around 10 million users.

    Cofounded by HotMail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia and entrepreneur Yogesh Patel, SabSe wants to add additional functionality to its core small business offerings following the purchase of Jaxtr.

    The terms of the deal were not released but Jaxtr is venture-backed and has raised more than USD $20 million dollars in funding.

    Jaxtr’s acquisition follows that of NewStep Networks by the Canada-based hosted VoIP software applications provider Natural Convergence on Monday – signalling a possible shake-out in the VoIP sector.

  • INTERVIEW: Carriers' "Sea Change" Towards IP Networks, JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy

    JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy talks to voip.biz-news about the "sea change" currently taking place in the communications industry – and explains how that has resulted in JAJAH itself evolving from a consumer VoIP focus to become a global IP communications platform provider.

    Telecom operators realise their business is shifting – what they do about it is another matter.

    One company that appears well placed to offer an opinion is JAJAH – not least because it is about to sign "three or four" operators globally to use its IP platform.

    Since its launch in March 2006 it has gone from being a web-activated calling solution to a platform of choice for outsourced IP managed services, partnering with a growing number of carriers, telcos and technology companies to white label its services.

    Trevor Healy, CEO of JAJAH, said there is no doubt that mobile operators’ views have evolved over the last two to three years.

    JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy

    He told voip.biz-news that their attitude to a service like mobile VoIP has gone from ‘this is not going to happen’ to ‘it’s a problem on a small scale’ and had now reached ‘it’s going to happen and we have to be involved’.

    "When we started our business we always had these strategy debates internally about whether we should engage the operators," he said. "We knew it would take time for them to get their heads around it.

    "Now we are close to signing three or four operators globally to use our platform."

    Healy said JAJAH is offering carriers a fully serviced data communications platform, from which they can then cherry pick services such as payment and billing, fraud protection and termination engines.

    He said the carriers would use the JAJAH IP platform for a number of different things.

    "Some want to effectively capture more international call traffic, either originating or arising in their country," he said.

    "They now understand that customers are using this tool for long distance calls. But rather than build a platform themselves it’s easier for them to partner us and OEM our platform."

    Healy said operators didn’t only want to capture domestic calls but also those made by displaced internationals.

    "So, for example, it could be an Irish operator trying to capture all Irish callers in the US," he said.

    At the other end of the spectrum were operators such as Japan’s EMOBILE who are working on pure Voice over HSDPA.

    "They are right at the edge of the technology curve," said Healy. "Then there are the WiMAX guys who are coming to us saying ‘we need something to bridge the gap between now and then."

    Another "market" for JAJAH is operators that are experiencing saturation in their domestic markets and who are looking to find new sources of revenue.

    This is the case in Italy, according to Healy, where there are two mobiles for every male in the country.

    "So because of this they need to go overseas," he said. "As they go international they look at how they can build up their market internationally."

    Healy said he expected to see interest from the Tier 2 operators first, since they were facing far more competition.

    And he said the Tier 1s would probably try and integrate platforms internally initially, a process which he reckoned would see some failures and provide "pickings" for JAJAH.

    "There’s definitely a sea change in the operator landscape – and it will continue to evolve," he said.

    "We are trying to evolve a business model philosophy. The CAPEX model is not going to work.

    "If we do not put a barrier in front of these companies, we will drag them along to our vision."

    That vision has been developing for the past three years, during which time JAJAH has been shifting its focus away from just providing the mobile web VoIP model of free client-to-client calls and low-cost international rates.

    A year ago the Silicon Valley-based company began providing VoIP back-end operations to customers such as Yahoo and Match.com.

    It formed a strategic partnership with Intel to get its technology onboard next-generation PCs and offers a range of software clients to support VoIP calling on WiFi.

    However, the real emphasis has been on becoming a service provider as well as a brand for end-user calls. At the end of February, JAJAH signed a deal with BoldCall to provide online retail customers with JAJAH’s click-to-call services.

    Healy said JAJAH has effectively re-invented itself three times in its corporate life, while staying in the same core market.

    The genesis behind the changes had been seeing the flow of dollars from large companies into enterprises, which then wanted to offer new solutions to their customers – very often their employees.

    "We started as a consumer business. What we did for consumers, we did very well," he said.

    "Then other companies started saying: ‘why not open up your platform on an OEM/white label basis?’"

    The resulting evolution has seen JAJAH design its IP platform to suit three general participants in the market:

    • Enterprises – especially large multinationals such as Pfizer
    • Internet companies – such as Yahoo, that use JAJAH’s platform to carry voice
    • Operators – who want to make a platform for OEMs

    Healy said the initial part of this business model change saw JAJAH offering its services to large companies.

    Then Yahoo asked JAJAH to integrate voice into its messaging platform for its 100 million IM users.

    "More recently we re-invented ourselves again by putting it into the cloud and offering a purely managed service to companies like Yahoo with no upfront fee," he said.

    "We started to see unified communications in the cloud."

    Healy said they saw what the likes of Microsoft, Cisco and Oracle were doing in enterprises and identified a "sweet spot".

    He said they realised that enterprises had a lot of front-end applications but no connectivity.

    So large corporations with offices worldwide were having to organise and invest in UC – effectively replicating JAJAH’s offering.

    "So we reiterated our platform as a full platform for enterprises, moving into UC," he said.

    While enterprises have always featured in JAJAH’s activities – there are more than 5,000 businesses using the platform at any one time – this shift into UC on the cloud is a new niche.

    However, Healy said various factors mean the company is well placed for the change.

    He said JAJAH is global by nature, connecting into 220 countries around the world, and its consumer background means it understands what services and apps people are using outside the office environment.

    This global connectivity is device-agnostic – the company has an "anything in and anything out" philosophy of connectivity – and it has mobile solutions for a wide range of devices.

    In financial terms, the change in emphasis has meant revenues shifting in favor of infrastructure activities.

    Healy said this is increasing every quarter and is nearly at an 80-20 revenue split between the IP platform and consumer sides of the business.

    "Having said that, the consumer business is a very good one and is still important because it’s our sandbox to test a lot of our offerings," he said.

    "When we bring it to a carrier, it’s been seriously tested. A lot of companies are doing their testing in a lab environment and then testing it in an operator’s environment."

    Healy said the VoIP calling business had also proved itself on a small scale – it has more than 15 million subscribers.

    "If our consumer business was in the hands of a bigger brand and with more investment then it would be a huge business," he said. "The model works and consumers are very loyal."

    It has been necessary to concentrate on the platform side at the expense of the consumer business, according to Healy, because JAJAH is a small company and can’t afford to dilute itself too much.

    He fully expects the company to reap the rewards from this approach.

    "In the long term, enabling others to do what we do is the better strategy," he said.

  • Palm Pre App Count Builds – Now More Handsets?


    Palm must be hoping it can quickly build on estimated opening weekend sales of 60,000 Pre smartphones – not least because Apple has cranked up the pressure with the launch of a new iPhone.

    While Palm’s Saturday launch has largely been judged a success, it was hampered by supply constraints which saw most Sprint Nextel stores get less than 50 phones to sell.

    The limited supply of handsets meant that the Pre sold out in hours at most locations.

    Sprint’s flagship Manhattan store had 200 units at launch. Its store in Boston’s Back Bay area had only 55, while one in San Francisco’s Mission district had 60.

    Palm and Sprint strenuosly denied they were limiting supplies deliberately, instead the restrictions were put down to manufacturing constraints.

    As expected, between 80-90 per cent of the first buyers were already Sprint customers – while about 60 per cent were prior Palm owners.

    Meanwhile, while one of the major concerns for the Pre has been the lack of apps for the phone there has been a flow of new software being announced by developers since Saturday’s launch.

    Among them are the WHERE and Photobucket apps.

    WHERE is a location based application that allows users to find different content based on their geographic position.

    It also highlights local content including weather, news, movie times, restaurant recommendations. You can also perform selective searches through WHERE and find out things like where to find the cheapest gas. WHERE will also have the ability to integrate with the Pre contact and calendar data.

    Photobucket allows users to send and upload photos directly from the phone. You can send any photo taken on the phone to a Photobucket album and shared through the website. You can also open a new Photobucket account directly through your Pre.

    Other applications include Zumobi’s Today Show and Sporting News Baseball apps for on-the-go news and sports updates, and LikeMe, which offers personal recommendations for restaurants, attractions, etc, based on your location.

    Beeweeb and Agile Commerce have also announced their plans to offer services to help developers create apps for the Pre and Palm WebOS.

    These new apps join the dozen or so programs that were available in the Pre App Catalog at launch, including Pandora and Fandango.

    According to Palm, more than 150,000 apps were downloaded on the first day the smartphone was available.

    Currently, the Palm App Catalog is in beta and the Mojo SDK is only available to a limited number of developers.

  • WWDC: New iPhone 3Gs Twice as Fast, Video Camera


    Apple has unveiled a new version of the iPhone – the iPhone 3Gs – at WWDC 2009.

    Among the key improvements are a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and VGA video capture at 30fps, improved battery life, voice control, a faster processor and 7.2Mbps HSDPA-compatible radio.

    The new iPhone 3Gs comes with either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, doubling the previous offerings of 8GB and 16GB.

    It will go on sale June 19 in the US. The 32GB model will be USD $299 and the 16GB model will be USD $199.

    iPhone 3Gs will also be available in more than 80 countries in the coming weeks.

    Apple is also dropping the price of the iPhone 3G to USD $99 and the iPhone 3G 16GB model to $149 starting immediately.

    The latter, USD $50 short of the new 8GB 3Gs model, may not be of great appeal.

    The iPhone 3Gs includes the new OS 3.0, which includes over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste (finally), MMS, Spotlight Search, and landscape keyboard.

    The new autofocus camera has a "tap to focus" feature, allowing users to touch the display to select an object or area of interest and the camera automatically re-adjusts focus and exposure.

    Although there’s still no flash, Apple has added auto-focus and geotagging support.

    Video clips can be edited on the handset by trimming the start and stop points – and then sent by email or MMS and posted to MobileMe or YouTube with just one tap.

    The voice control feature in iPhone 3G S offers hands free operation for both iPhone and iPod functions.

    These include a command that activates the Genius feature by saying "play more songs like this".

    iPhone 3Gs has the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard for high-quality 3D graphics, which should further enhance its gaming reputation.

    Battery life has been improved to give five hours of 3G talk time and up to 24 hours of music playback — according to Apple.

    Announcing the new handset, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing, said it was on average up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G.

    He said it opens web pages quicker and launches applications faster.

    "iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control," he said.

    Other new features include:

    • digital compass
    • the OS now supports tethering
    • integrated hardware encryption

  • HDD Not Threatened by Virtualisation, Claims Western Digital


    Western Digital has dismissed the growing trend of virtualisation among enterprises as a possible threat – and instead emphasised the indispensable value of internal hard drives in businesses.

    Noel Timbol, business development manager at WD, said recent virtualisation efforts undertaken by companies have not made any dent on the sales of their Enterprise models.

    Speaking at the launch of WD’s new line of internal HDD (hard disk drive) products at Computerworld Philippines, he told TechWorld that "even if companies are migrating their data centre operations abroad, they’d still need hard drives for simple internal operations".

    WD is currently the second-largest hard drive manufacturer in the world, and currently leads the market for portable hard drives.