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  • Report: Looking Forward to Ultra-High Definition TV

    While the market for High-Definition TV has hit the mainstream, the industry has already started speculating about the commercialization of Ultra-High Definition (UHD).

    Market research firm, In-Stat, believes there will be a lengthy time period before the UHD market reaches a critical mass of 5% household penetration.

    However, as the initial market debuts over the next five to ten years, there will be ample opportunities for technology companies, manufacturers, service providers and media companies to experiment with business models and strategies to make UHD a strong business in the long term, as the In-Stat analysts claim.

    UHD formats provide between four and sixteen times the resolution of Blu-ray or 1080p high definition as well as 22.2 multichannel three-dimensional sound.

    “This is a vast improvement over the currently available end user viewing experience in the home,” says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst.

    As originally proposed, UHD comes in two levels of resolution: 7680 x 4320 pixels (i.e., 8K resolution), and 3840 x 2160 (i.e., 4K resolution).

    The In-Stat report says the rising popularity of high resolution digital cinema will expose consumers to high resolution content. Then, early UHDTVs will be made available to provide a digital cinema high resolution viewing experience in the home.

    Ultimately, broadcasters will start offering UHD content to an addressable market of UHDTVs, between 2017 and 2022.

    In-Stat expects the total installed base of UHDTVs Europe to approach 5% household penetration until 2021, and increase to over 28.2% penetration by 2025.

    In Asia-Pacific, Japan will be among the early adopter countries.

  • Vordel Introduces Cloud Service Broker to Manage Multi-Domain Services

    Vordel, a provider of governance products for Cloud Computing and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), released the Vordel Cloud Service Broker that aggregates and manages multi-domain services.

    Organizations who wish to use Cloud services in conjunction with their own SOA and those of their partners face major issues related to reliability and trustworthiness. One significant challenge is aggregating services from multiple domains including Public, Private and Community Clouds – into coherent composite services and applying policies to them.

    The Vordel says its Cloud Service Broker solves this multi-domain problem by registering services from all three domains into a single repository – the multi-domain registry repository – enabling monitoring, management and policy enforcement.

    The Multi-Domain Registry (MDRR) aggregates together services across domains. These domains include not only Cloud providers such as Amazon and Google, but also local on-premises services, and business partner services.

    In this way, all of the services on which a business depends are managed in one place. This becomes a single point at which compliance to Service Level Agreements, compliance to privacy and security mandates, and usage statistics can be viewed.

    Vordel Cloud Service Broker provides audit trail of Cloud service usage – analytics of Cloud Computing usage includes not only raw usage information, but also information about service quality, patterns of usage over time, and identity of users.

    It also allows developers to link together local applications with Cloud-hosted applications. The local applications may be accessed via Web Services interfaces, via database calls, via message schemes such as MQ or JMS or simply via the file system.

    Throttling is the “surge protector” of Cloud Computing. If an application makes a high number of calls to a Cloud service then the Verdel’s new service can deflect a portion of the calls to back-up service, newly provisioned for this purpose.

    Vordel CEO, Vic Morris, speaking about the Cloud Service Broker at VordelWorld in Dublin, said "Trust is a major barrier to Cloud adoption particularly among enterprises. It’s clear that many organizations see the value of incorporating Cloud Services into their IT infrastructure, but they also have concerns about the reliability and performance of these services outside their domain of control.

    “The Vordel Cloud Service Broker addresses these issues by providing a trustworthy and reliable onramp to Cloud services allowing businesses to monitor and manage them in the same fashion as their own internal services. This means that composite applications can be built in a completely seamless fashion offering users full visibility, trust and control," he added.

  • Best Buy Brings On-Demand Entertainment to Its Customers

    Best Buy and Sonic Solutions announced a strategic relationship that will result in a new Best Buy customer offering in its line-up of digital entertainment products.

    The new on-demand movie and entertainment service will be powered by Sonic’s Roxio CinemaNow.

    To power this offering, Best Buy has entered into a multi-year agreement in which the company plans to license and deploy Sonic’s Roxio CinemaNow technology and services platform to make on-demand digital content delivery a standard feature on connected consumer electronics devices sold throughout U.S. Best Buy retail stores and BestBuy.com.

    Roxio CinemaNow is a part of Sonic’s Roxio family products that enable consumers to manage personal digital media content and give an access to premium Hollywood entertainment on a broad range of connected devices. It is also powering internet movie delivery for Blockbuster.

    Under the terms of the agreement, Best Buy acquired warrants enabling it to purchase shares of Sonic Solutions common stock.

    To foster the consumer appetite for obtaining on-demand premium content electronically, Best Buy intends to embed the Roxio CinemaNow technology on a wide array of devices – web-connected television sets, portable media players, PCs, Blu-ray Disc players, set-top boxes, and mobile phones – from a variety of manufacturers.

    The company says they expect to undertake a marketing program to educate consumers about the increased convenience, flexibility, and choice digital content delivery affords.

    With the new Best Buy service, consumers will have access to buy or rent an extensive library of content including new movies, TV shows, independent films, and older catalog movies, which they will be able to access on devices in the broad ecosystem.

    It is anticipated that new titles will often be available on the same day they become available on DVDs in retail outlets. Together with their Studio partners, Best Buy and Sonic plan to also collaborate on new service and content offerings, including those that leverage digital copies to bridge physical disc sales and electronic sell through.

    "With Best Buy’s focus, we expect on-demand entertainment to quickly grow into a mass market activity, with digital sell-through and rental becoming a significant new revenue stream for content owners," said Dave Habiger, president and CEO of Sonic Solutions.

  • Motorola Becomes a First-Mover Again

    “Android provides differentiation today, but may not tomorrow,” says recent Canalys report on Motorola’s market strategy.

    During its Q3 earnings call on 29 October, Motorola’s Co-CEO Sanjay Jha announced the company’s quarterly profit of $12 million, up from a $397 million loss a year ago.

    Canalys analysts state this was primarily driven by aggressive cost-cutting and the improvement was reflected in a stock price rise of more than 12%.

    Despite the overall positive result, the troubles faced by Motorola’s handset division continue. During the quarter it recorded sales of $1.7 billion, but made a loss of $183 million, shipping just 13.6 million devices.

    More positively, less than two months after announcing the CLIQ, Motorola introduced its second Android smart phone – the DROID – earlier in the week. The DROID is the first announced phone to support Android 2.0, with all the enhancements that brings.

    DROID will be available in the US exclusively from Verizon Wireless from 6 November. It will cost $199.99 with a new two-year contract after a $100 mail-in rebate.

    According to the report, Verizon is pitching the DROID aggressively against Apple’s iPhone and the device fills an important gap in the operator’s smart phone portfolio.

    “For Motorola, this partnership is an invaluable opportunity to rebuild its status within the handset market and draw attention to its Android-centric strategy,” it says.

    For the past year, Motorola has put significant effort into streamlining its platforms, having previously produced an array of smart phones on Windows Mobile, Symbian and various forms of Linux.

    The company aims to reduce its reliance on feature phones and will hope to be able to push Android down into higher volume, but more price-sensitive segments over time.

    Canalys claims the quick rollout of DROID following the CLIQ demonstrates that the company is moving in the right direction, having suffered from portfolio stagnation following the earlier tremendous success of the RAZR.

    Both the DROID and the CLIQ may do well in the US in the short term, but there can be no room for complacency. Over the coming months the market will see a huge influx of Android devices from top-tier handset brands as well as from vendors very focused on delivering devices to operators at lower cost.

    “For Motorola to maintain momentum it will need to be able to differentiate itself from the many other Android products that will be available in 2010, and it will need to do this on the international stage. China will be critical. Motorola has enjoyed success with its Linux devices there in the past and it will need to replicate this success and build upon it with its Android devices.”

    Analysts conclude that the company will also need to ensure that the devices it produces compete on quality as well as price, ensuring that a focus on getting Android into the middle-tier of the market does not result in compromises that lead to products that deliver an inferior user experience.

  • VOIPFUTURE First to Monitor Multiple GB/s Links at Full Line Rate

    Call connection quality is a key factor for customer retention and churn in today’s NGN/IMS networks. Live traffic monitoring is essential for voice service assurance. Monitoring today’s carrier Ethernet links requires full line rate processing capacity.

    VOIPFUTURE, a vendor of Next Generation Technology (NGT) for the analysis and diagnosis of voice quality in VoIP networks, claims the company’s Smart Monitoring Probes are the first to monitor multiple GB/s links at full line rate.

    RTP Monitoring Probe generates detailed diagnostics for every 5-second of a call stream. The company says this "innovative voice quality evaluation technology" provides precise information about individual in-call quality as well as network-wide service status.

    Smart RTP Monitoring Probe is a standalone solution providing unattended 24 / 7 operation on a standard industry platform in place of proprietary hardware.

    According to VOIPFUTURE the solution is deployable in VoIP networks of any size and any vendor – from private corporate up to carrier networks. The Smart RTP Monitoring Probe can be placed at different keypoints in the network – carrier interconnections, broadband access, core network links and corporate WAN.

    It passively and permanently monitors real time traffic in the VoIP network. An alarm is signaled should any loss of quality occur. An alarm is signaled only after the quality falls below the level set.

    Detailed analysis and diagnostic information are available for service level monitoring, network performance optimization, VoIP troubleshooting and customer care management.

    “Our innovative evaluation algorithm together with superior performance was the winning factor for our carrier projects,” said Jan Bastian, VOIPFUTURE CEO.

    “Our solution helps uniquely to boost network performance and reduce churn,” he added.

    The company says their carrier grade platform processes more than 4,500 concurrent calls (G.711, 20ms) on a standard IT server, making them the leading vendor for high performance RTP monitoring.

    VOIPFUTURE’s RTP Monitoring performance has been tested and certified by EANTC – European Advanced Networking Test Center, which offers vendor-neutral consultancy and test facilities for network equipment manufacturers, service providers and enterprise customers.

  • Mobile Security Solutions: Interview with Alain Rollier, President of AXSionics

    A paradigm shift in information communication technology is set to address security threats and concerns in Africa and the world at large, a senior official has said.

    In an interview, AXSionics founding president, Alain Rollier, said his company was bringing a new innovative security system aimed at addressing insecurity in technological business with respect to mobile phones, computing and financial sector (banking).

    “The system we are bringing to the market is a paradigm shift in security – it reduces cost for all service providers while increasing security to a level where attacks become unattractive to cyber-criminals.

    “In addition, it has an attractive business model. For the user it is very convenient. For once we have security implemented in a way that makes life easy for the users! As always with anything new, there is a certain time required to get the message across.

    Alain Rollier

    “We are happy with the progress we have made and more importantly so are our customers who benefit from our solutions and are our greatest advocates,” said Rollier.

    While installation of mobile security product appears to be more vital, Rollier said his main concern, particularly in the use of smartphones, was the issue of data held within the phone.

    Rollier cited examples of enterprise data such as e-Banking, commerce transactions, identity data and the whole host of username/password combinations that are available and which could be accessed and used by cyber-criminals, as areas of concern.

    Admittedly, mobile security product, according to Rollier, was one part of the solution to fears of insecurity on these new technological devices.

    Rollier said smartphones had all the issues around security that a pc or laptop has, adding that a couple more came from the additional interfaces such as SMSes and SIM cards.

    “By nature, having a lot of interfaces is not helping to secure devices. One challenge is to have two independent channels on the same device – internet browser and communication.

    “I think a shift in thinking is required. The smartphone, laptop or pc will always be impossible to fully secure. The question we have to answer is ‘how do we make sure that identities and transactions are always secure when this is the case’.

    “This is what has driven our thinking at AXSionics, and we have developed a solution that provides this security regardless of how insecure all the elements in the chain are,” said Rollier.

    However, Rollier was boastful about the new technology security software system, saying his company – AXSionics – had recently won several awards for its innovation, concept and design.

    Among the top technology and innovative awards were the Red Dot Design Award, the Red Herring Hot 100 Europe Award and the European Innovation Award in Identity Management.

    “Despite our newness, it is currently in use in a number of high security areas including defence and in volume use in retail banking.

    “It has many innovations built in to ensure it is scalable, easy to use and convenient…as well as ensuring the smartphone, laptop or pc is highly secure for security conscious transactions, regardless of how hostile the overall environment might be,” said Rollier.

  • AFCOM Survey: Most Data Centers Not Ready for Cyberattack

    Significant findings of AFCOM’s 2009/2010 Data Center Trends survey reveal that though threat of cyber terrorism is real, it is not being adequately addressed by the world’s keepers of the most confidential financial, military and personal data.

    Survey also reveals that despite hype around cloud computing, only 14.9 percent of data centers have deployed cloud solutions to date – and it shines a new light on the fate of mainframes.

    In addition, it reveals the government is behind its private industry counterparts in terms of greening initiatives.

    Meanwhile, it shows that the mainframe may be losing its place in worldwide data centers, as servers become more capable.

    And cloud computing, despite the hype, hasn’t pushed beyond 15 percent acceptance at this point. In comparison, 73 percent have implemented virtual processing.

    Data center greening

    The survey re-iterates that greening of the data center is no longer just a concept – it is actually taking place, and on a large scale, with 71.3 percent of all respondents indicating they are actively engaged in greening initiatives at this time.

    And while 71.3 percent are, in fact, engaged in greening, only 42.2 percent have a “formal” greening initiative.

    According to respondents, the most important results they have experienced as a result of implementing green measures are in power efficiency, 60.8 percent report they are using less power and 51.4 percent have implement cooling efficiency strategies. In addition to power and cooling efficiencies, 11.5 percent also report a significant savings in water usage.

    Data centers & cyber terrorism

    Data center professionals must be well-equipped to handle and respond to cyber terrorist attacks, but according to AFCOM’s survey, there’s considerable room for improvement.

    Respondents revealed that 60.9 percent of all data centers worldwide officially recognize cyber terrorism as a threat they need to deal with, but only a little over one-third (34.4 percent) have included it in their disaster/recovery plans, which would include their best defense plans if attacked.

    Only one in four, or 24.8 percent, has addressed cyber terrorism in their policies and procedures manuals and only 60.2 percent have a written policies and procedures manual.

    Meanwhile, less than one in five, or 19.7 percent provide any cyber terrorism employee training. On the positive side, however, 82.4 percent report that they do perform background security checks on all potential new employees, another solid defense against cyber terrorists.

    Data center consolidation

    As the economy suffers, more companies have traditionally looked to consolidation as a method of saving money. The economic downturn we are experiencing today is no exception, with 62.1 percent of all respondents either already in the process of consolidating one or more data centers, or seriously considering it.

    More than half of respondents (52.1 percent) plan to relocate their newly consolidated data center to another existing facility, or build an entirely new one to accommodate the additional requirements.

    Emerging technologies

    According to the survey, the technologies with the highest levels of adoption in today’s data centers are: virtual processing, implemented by 72.9 percent of all respondents, Web applications (70.4 percent), automation (54.8 percent) cluster computing (50. percent), and cloud computing (14.9 percent).

    Surprisingly, in addition to the slim 14.9 percent who utilize cloud computing, this technology has been considered by an additional 46.3 percent, but never implemented.

    “Our analysis shows that data center managers need to develop more comprehensive cyber terrorism policies, and get more aggressive in greening, particularly in government agencies where greening lags behind private industry. Finally, it’s time to decide where the mainframe is still viable and needed, and where high-end servers can do a more efficient job,” said Jill Eckhaus, CEO of AFCOM.

    AFCOM is the data center association that represents both the IT and facilities side of the data center. Respondents, part of AFCOM’s 4,500 member data center sites, represent 27 countries, 83 percent in the U.S. and 17 percent overseas; 60 percent are responsible for Information Technology, 31 percent Facilities and 9 percent represent other roles in the data center

    AFCOM 2010 Data Center World will take place March 7-10, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, TN.

  • HDI 100-inch Laser-Based 3D HDTV Reached the Manufacturing Stage

    HDI‘s September announcement of their potential new standard for switchable 2D/3D television technology came on the same day several major manufactures announced plans to release new plasma televisions with 3D capabilities via shutter glasses.

    HDI was the first to announce it has entered into a manufacturing agreement to mass produce 100-inch Laser-Driven 2D/3D Switchable Dynamic Video Projection Televisions.

    HDI’s 2D/3D switchable system delivers 2D image with a 50% greater resolution than today’s digital cinemas, and derives its “greater-than-high” definition stereoscopic 1920 x 1080p "3D" image quality from two RGB laser-illuminated Liquid Crystal on Silcon (LCOS) micro display imagers.

    At full 1080p HD, the HDI screen refreshes at 360 fields per-second on each eye, the fastest refresh rate on any mass produced television or projector, as the company claims.

    HDI says they have completely eliminated the adverse effects, such as migraines, dizziness, nausea, and motion sickness, long associated with inferior and expensive shutter glasses and substandard 3D technology.

    HDI says their displays draw 80% less power than existing 2D plasma displays of the same size, offer a 95% reduction in manufacturing pollution, and a 100% reduction in harmful chemicals and radioactive components currently used in existing televisions.

    At 10-inches thick, HDI’s 100-inch diagonal display weighs 75% less than equivalent Plasma and LCD displays, and is anticipated to have a street price potentially 60% less than current 2D flatscreen Plasma and LCD displays.

    According to HDI co-founder Ingemar Jansson, "The first production-run of 100-inch HDI Ltd. 2D/3D switchable displays should quickly put product into a multitude of B2B and public demonstration venues."

    He’s mum as to when leading American retailers will be able to put units into homes, but stresses that the simplistic and inexpensive design and manufacturing techniques required to produce HDI Ltd. televisions, "will have product in the marketplace faster than one would expect," and adds, "either with the HDI logo or that of another leading manufacturer."

    Offering a thought on the fact that California appears poised to be the first state to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs, Jansson states, "In light of the energy efficient products emerging from companies such as Apple, the lobbying efforts of the Consumer Electronics Association strikes me as almost criminal in promoting antiquated technologies that the ‘Grid,’ and the planet, simply cannot sustain."

  • Apple Updates Apple TV with 3.0 Software: More HD Content to Be Sold

    After months of speculations whether Apple will release completely new Apple TV device making it a high-end media center for our living rooms or rather leave it, more or less, as it is (means without all the latest true HD capibilities, IP streaming, Blu-ray, live TV ability, HD recorder, 1080p support, etc.)… we still don’t know the answer.

    The company introduced new Apple TV 3.0 software witch gives us not more than a redesigned main menu – that is said to give a faster access to the content, possibility to watch iTunes Extras and enjoy iTunes LP in fullscreen and listen to the internet radio (including stations in high-quality HE-ACC formats).

    Adding only cosmetic changes to a device with such a huge potential doesn’t mean Apple gave up developing Apple TV and converting it to a set’top box with all the capabilities offered by the HD market, but it gives a next signal that the company will do nothing that would pull people away from iTunes.

    On-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes Store give Apple millions. According to the company, Apple TV gives direct access to a catalog of over 8,000 films on iTunes including over 2,000 in HD video available for rent or purchase. Users can also choose from a selection of 11 million songs, 10,000 music videos and over 50,000 TV episodes. Renting a movie in iTuens runs from $3 to $5, buying would costs us $14,99. And there are 65 million users of iTunes out there.

    “HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV,” confirmed Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services.

    Adding anything that would take Apple from iTunes revenue (like additional drive – Blu-ray or, at least DVD, IP streaming or live TV) wouldn’t have any sense from the economical point of view. The only thing can happen is that Apple will add to the Apple TV an access to App Store to maximize revenues from the application market.

    Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts that Apple will sell 6.6 million AppleTV units this year.

    ***
    The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners. Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for $229.

    Apple TV requires an 802.11b/g/n wireless network or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet networking, a broadband Internet connection and a high definition widescreen TV.

    Apple has also released iTunes 9.0.2, adding support for Apple TV 3.0.

  • Intel and Numonyx Announce a Breakthrough in PCM Technology

    Intel and Numonyx, a provider of memory technologies, announced a key breakthrough in the research of phase change memory (PCM), a new non-volatile memory technology that combines many of the benefits of today’s various memory types.

    For the first time, researchers have demonstrated a 64Mb test chip that enables the ability to stack, or place, multiple layers of PCM arrays within a single die.

    These findings pave the way for building memory devices with greater capacity, lower power consumption and optimal space savings for random access non-volatile memory and storage applications, the companies announced.

    The achievements are a result of an ongoing joint research program between Numonyx and Intel that has been focusing on the exploration of multi-layered or stacked PCM cell arrays.

    Intel and Numonyx say their researchers are now able to demonstrate a vertically integrated memory cell – called PCMS (phase change memory and switch). PCMS is comprised of one PCM element layered with a newly used Ovonic Threshold Switch (OTS) in a true cross point array.

    The ability to layer or stack arrays of PCMS provides the scalability to higher memory densities while maintaining the performance characteristics of PCM, a challenge that is becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain with traditional memory technologies.

    Memory cells are built by stacking a storage element and a selector, with several cells creating memory arrays. Intel and Numonyx researchers were able to deploy a thin film, two-terminal OTS as the selector, matching the physical and electrical properties for PCM scaling.

    With the compatibility of thin-film PCMS, multiple layers of cross point memory arrays are now possible. Once integrated together and embedded in a true cross point array, layered arrays are combined with CMOS circuits for decoding, sensing and logic functions.

    "We are encouraged by this research milestone and see future memory technologies, such as PCMS, as critical for extending the role of memory in computing solutions and in expanding the capabilities for performance and memory scaling," said Al Fazio, Intel Fellow and director, memory technology development.

    Greg Atwood, senior technology fellow at Numonyx, added that the results show the potential for higher density, scalable arrays and NAND-like usage models for PCM products in the future.

    “This is important as traditional flash memory technologies face certain physical limits and reliability issues, yet demand for memory continues to rise in everything from mobile phones to data centers" he said.

    To provide more information about the memory cell, cross point array, experiment and results, Intel and Numonyx will publish a joint paper titled "A Stackable Cross Point Phase Change Memory,” which will be presented at the 2009 International Electron Devices Meeting in Baltimore on Dec. 9.