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  • Netflix Beats Blu-ray Target – Hopes High For 2009


    Netflix has reached its target of 500,000 Blu-ray subscribers ahead of schedule.

    The retailer’s chief financial officer Barry McCarthy said subscribers had added the option of paying an extra USD $1 to receive Blu-ray Disc titles at a quicker rate than Netflix forecast in October.

    While prices of Blu-ray players have dropped sharply recently, the same has not been true of disc prices. This may have benefitted Netflix’s HD rental service as new Blu-ray player owners look to rent moviest rather than buy them.

    Netflix expects the Blu-ray service to help boost total subscribers to about 9 million by the end of the year.

    To continue its high-def push, Netflix will promote Blu-ray inside its mailing envelopes next year.

    As well as providing the Blu-ray option, the company has boosted subscribers by offering its listing of over 12,000 video-streaming titles available for TV viewing through TiVo digital video recorders.

    Last week, Netflix also began offering an HD download service on two Samsung Blu-ray players.

  • Japan Grasps Blu-ray – US Starts To Get Taste


    Blu-ray players bucked generally weak Black Friday sales in the US – helped considerably by average prices dropping to USD $200, according to DisplaySearch.

    Stripping out sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, the researchers report that US Blu-ray Disc player revenue "more than tripled from a year earlier" during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday .

    Over USD $30 million was generated on sales of 147,000 Blu-ray decks.

    With Sony and Samsung leading the charge by dropping the price of their entry-level machines to below USD $200, overall costs averaged half the $400 price tag of a year ago.

    Coupled with the strong BD player sales, retailers have been reporting sales of HDTVs have been similarly buoyant despite the economic difficulties.

    If the US – finally – appears to be on the cusp of grasping Blu-ray, take a look at the Japanese market.

    BD recorders now account for half of all DVD recorders in the country – up from just 10 per cent last October.

    Even if this phenomenal rise is down to price drops it must still make for cheery year-end reading for the Blu-ray Disc Association.

    Now maybe it can turn its attention to the price of Blu-ray Disc prices.

    While the release of The Dark Knight is expected to boost the high-def format’s disc sales, the general perception is that the movie studios need to cut prices to ensure Blu-ray really does take off.

  • Nokia Remains Dominant As Smartphone Market Slows


    Growth in the global smartphone market dipped to 11.5 per cent in the third quarter year-on-year, the slowest rate of growth since it started tracking smartphone sales, according to research firm Gartner.

    Some 36.5 million smartphones were sold globally in the July-September quarter.

    Despite all vendors seeking a larger slice of the smartphone market, the growth rate is expected to continue slowing.

    Gartner also painted a fairly gloomy picture for the handset market generally, something announcements by the likes of Nokia and RIM over the past few days have done nothing to dispel.

    Not surprisingly, it blamed the current economic climate for "negatively impacting" on sales of high-end devices.

    Nokia maintained its No.1 position with 42.4 per cent market share in the third quarter of 2008, but for the first time it recorded a decline in sales of 3 per cent year-on-year.
    Gartner attributed the drop to increased competition in the consumer smartphone market.

    Sales of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones increased 81.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2008.

    Apple regained its No.3 position in the global smartphone market and improved its market share to 12.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2008.

  • Acer Smartphone Gets Launch Date


    The first Acer-branded smartphone is to go on sale in the first quarter of 2009.

    While no details have been released – handset info or precise regions where it will be sold – it does at least firm up what have until now been largely speculative reports.

    The first Acer-branded handsets are expected to launch in first-quarter 2009 initially in Western Europe and Russia, with other markets to follow later.

    The company appears optimistic about the smartphone market, which it signalled its intent to enter with the purchase of Taiwan smartphone maker E-Ten Information Systems earlier this year.

    While Acer is confident the smartphone segment will be a major growth driver for the company over the next 3-5 years, it is equally bullish in other areas.

    With news of its smartphone activity came an similarly optimistic forecast from Acer about its growth opportunities for 2009.

    The company expects its notebook shipments to increase 15-20 per cent in 2009 and overall sales to grow 25-30 per cent year-on-year.

  • Second Android Smartphone Arrives


    Australia-based Kogan Technologies has announced it is to begin selling two Android handsets from next month.

    The Agora and Agora Pro models will be the second phones to be launched – after T-Mobile’s G1 – with the open-source operating system.

    Similar in appearance to classic BlackBerry smartphones, the Agora’s will come with 3G connectivity, a 2.5-inch LCD, a 320×240-pixel touchscreen, a five-way central navigation key, a microSD slot, a QWERTY keyboard with backlighting, and Bluetooth 2.0.

    Functions include Google Search, Gmail, the YouTube video player, Google Maps, Google Talk, and Google Calendar, as well as support for a variety of video, audio and mail-attachment formats.

    The Pro version, which also has a two-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi connectivity, and GPS, will work on networks around the world.

    Due for release on 29 January, both models can be preordered from Kogan’s web site. The standard Agora is priced at about USD $194, while the Pro version will cost about USD $399.

    Although with similar specs to the G1 and very reasonably priced, it remains to be seen whether consumers will put their faith in a little known brand.

    What is certain is that if Kogan can bring what appears to be a well put together Android handset to the market, others will be able to do so too.

    Hopefully that means 2009 will see more new Android smartphones coming online.

  • HD Webcam Shoots Real-time 720p at 30fps


    Samsung is expanding its range of CMOS image sensors with a new high-definition 1/4-inch, 1.2 Megapixel (Mp) system-on-chip (SoC) webcam.

    The S5K4AW is intended for embedding in both notebook and desktop computers.

    Developed specifically for real-time HD video capture, the imager supports 720p HD video at 30 frames per second, and captures VGA video at up to 60 frames per second.

    Dr Yiwan Wong, vice president of marketing for Samsung Electronics’ System LSI Division, said that by incorporating a technique called binning in 2×2 pixel groups, the S5K4AW addresses the oft-encountered problem of using webcams in low light.

    He said the imager is 3x more sensitive than current sensors.

    The binning technique also mean the imager can display standard VGA format without the need for cropping.

    Wong said this eliminates the "annoying problem" of losing the top or the bottom of a scene while video conferencing or video file sharing on social media networks such as YouTube.

    Mass production of the S5K4AW is expected in the first half of 2009.

  • Nominations Open For The Outstanding Storage Person and Product Of 2008


    With 2008 fast drawing to a close biz-news.com is seeking YOUR help in choosing outstanding candidates for the titles of Man/Woman of the Year and Product/Service of the Year.

    We would like you to nominate an individual and/or product/service that you feel has contributed greatly to the Storage sector over the past 12 months.

    The winner will be selected from the nominations submitted by our readers – professionals and technology enthusiasts in the industry.

    Obviously, as this is a crowd-sourcing survey, we need your participation.

    Spreading word of this survey to friends and colleagues will also ensure a wider participation in the poll and will give a much more accurate result.

    If you have more than one nomination for either category you can make multiple submissions – but you can only vote once for any person or product.

    We will publish the results in early 2009 and share the raw data with the community. (Personal information about contributors will not be disclosed).

    After a year like 2008 there are plenty of good candidates – so please give it some thought and send your Man/Woman and/or Product nominations to us.

  • Blu-ray Storage Capacities To Keep Climbing


    Pioneer has announced plans for a one terabyte (1TB) Blu-ray disc that could be on the market by 2013.

    With a 400GB disc already ready for launch and a half-terabyte disc expected to follow shortly, there may be some questions about how such an abundance of storage can be used.

    One answer may be the advent of upgraded high definition standards that take up even greater amounts of disc space.

    The possibility for progressively increasing to higher densities was a major reason that Blu-ray won over its rivals.

  • Pioneer 400GB Blu-ray discs will play on PS3


    There are undoubtedly pros and cons to having a single disc that can pack in 400GB of data – movies, music…whatever you can throw at it.

    Pioneer is preparing for release a 16-layer Blu-ray disc that not only offers this colossal storage capacity but will play back on most current standalone Blu-ray players, including the Sony PlayStation 3.

    The manufacturer insists that the read-only disc will be backwards compatible with existing players because the specifications of the pick-up head (PUH) of the disc are the same as those for blank BD discs.

    Currently, Blu-ray discs are either single layer 25GB discs or 50GB dual-layer discs.

    The new multi-layer disc is based on current Blu-ray discs but made from a new material of reflective layers of Dielectric.

    It is read-only (ROM) but there are plans for rewritable discs by 2010-2012.

    What is still not clear is whether current players will be able to read all 16 layers of the 400GB disc, rather than just the first two.

    The company also added that it will begin manufacturing 40-layer 1TB discs in 2013.

  • NXP Chip Brings High-end HDTV Quality Into Mainstream


    NXP has launched a new global single-chip LCD TV platform that it claims will give mid-range TVs an HD viewing experience previously only available on higher end sets.

    Founded by Philips, the semiconductor company believes its new platform will allow manufacturers and content providers to bring a broad range of Internet and digital video content to a significantly wider audience.

    The new NXP TV550 platform combines the manufacturer’s digital TV processing and picture quality technology into one fully integrated single-chip.

    This enables it to deliver a production-ready reference design that speeds manufacturers’ development and dramatically reduces bill-of-materials, according to NXP.

    Christos Lagomichos, executive vice president and general manager of BU Home, NXP Semiconductors, said the new platform would enable manufacturers to offer a range of advanced high definition TV features only previously available in high-end sets.

    Key to this was NXP’s PNX85500 processor and proprietary Motion Accurate Picture Processing (MAPP2) technology.

    The TV550 platform will be available in engineering samples in Q1 2009.

    The NXP TV550 features:

    • DVB-T
    • MPEG4/H.264 decode
    • HDMI reception
    • Decoding of digital SD and HD content
    • advanced programming
    • ethernet
    • CI+ security features to ease the delivery of IP TV content.