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  • Plasma and LCD TV Sales Increase in Q2 2009

    Quixel Research’s newly launched USA Large Area Display Report revealed that in Q2 2009 the Plasma TV category was the only large screen TV category to show significant growth quarter-to-quarter.

    Plasma TV (40”+) sales were up 31% in volume and 35% in value when compared to Q1 2009 sales, almost topping the $1B mark.

    “Unit sales of 42” 720p Plasma TVs were up 40% quarter-to-quarter as consumers were looking for value in uncertain economic times,” stated Tamaryn Pratt, Quixel Research’s principal.

    “It also helped that all the models offered were from top brands so consumers felt comfortable making a competitively priced purchase backed up by a well know brand.”

    The surge in 42” 720p Plasma models lifted the segment’s unit share of the LAD category four percent quarter-to-quarter. Plasma TV value topped $910M in the second quarter.

    Revenue results for the overall Large Area Display market were flat or $3.1B in Q2 2009 and when compared to Q2 2008 revenues, were down nine percent. Overall volume for the LAD market was still strong with the market up five percent quarter-to-quarter and up 10 percent year-to-year.

    The research shows that the harsh economic climate didn’t also slow LCDTV sales in the second quarter with sales up significantly quarter-to-quarter. However it did push consumers to purchase entry models as well as smaller screen sized models.

    The overall LCDTV market grew nine percent quarter-to-quarter and 22 percent year-to-year.

    “Unit sales for 22”, 32” and 40/42” models supported the LCDTV category increase in the second quarter,” commented Pratt.

    When assessing large screen size sales results in Q2 2009, the report showed that LCDTV sales 40”+ were flat in units and declined nine percent in value when compared to Q1 2009.

    Connected LCDTVs, or TVs with built-in internet capabilities enabling content such as YouTube, Netflix, Tivo, Facebook etc., saw sales increase significantly in both units and value compared to the prior quarter. Unit sales of connected LCDTVs were up 39 percent quarter-to-quarter and 20 percent year-to-year.

  • 4G: Network For Real Mass Market Activity

    Erik Hallberg, Senior Vice President and Head of TeliaSonera Mobility Services in Sweden, tells smartphone.biz-news how this telecom is changing the face of mobile technology with its innovative 4G network.

    Recently Eric Hallberg’s family settled in to a typical night at home. The family of four sat down for a comfortable evening by not turning on their television, but flipping open their laptops. This behavior is not atypical of many families these days, no matter what part of the world you live in.

    The use of technology as a medium for work and play is quickly changing our world. It is no surprise that eventually technology will have to catch up with our ever-growing need for more capacity, more speed and more power.

    “I think the demand is moving faster that we as a telecommunications industry can supply the demand,” said Hallberg.

    “The way that people are utilizing services like Twitter and Facebook is changing everything. They are connected from early morning to late in the evening.”

    In 2010 TeliaSonera and Ericsson will unveil the first commercial Long-term Evolution (LTE) network in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the 20 countries where the company has a communications presence. This 4G mobile broadband network will revolutionize the way we share information via our mobile networks by focusing solely on the exchange of data. Drastically expanding the speed and efficiency of the exchange of information will lead to a higher speed bandwidth for the corporate and everyday user.

    “4G is not just a step forward, it is totally new,” Hallberg said. “It is not designed for voice, it is designed for pure data. It is an all IP network – there is no transformation or translation between different types of technologies. All IP from the device to the radio station to the core network to the services – the first time a mobile network is designed that way for real mass market activity.”

    Whereas the everyday user will experience a faster speed and efficiency via their mobile network, for the corporate user, this expansion will mean a new kind of service opportunity for their businesses.

    “The integration of unified communication (i.e. voice adules, adule pictures and video conferencing) in the corporate market is really taking off,” Hallberg said.

    “There is the sophisticated level with the syscal equipment or similar to the small basic camera and things that you do through low speed activities of different kinds. This is just the beginning its going to boom in the coming years and its going to need a lot of high bandwidth accesses as well as core networks to support it.”

    According to Hallberg, TeliaSonera is not only looking to the future of telecommunications, they are also exploring environmentally friendly methods in which to embrace that future.

    As part of their development strategy, TeliaSonera will be participating in the 4G World 2009 Conference from September 15-18, 2009.

    “The reason for me to participate in Chicago is to listen to what others are thinking, what they are planning to do, or may be doing,” Hallberg said. “We want to get new input from other parts of the world that we will probably not get from the venders or from the local markets. So for it is a very important point for gathering information and inspiration as to what others are doing in the 4G market, LP market in the next coming years.”

    After their trip to the conference, the company’s priority will be to finalize the first installation of the new network and make it available first to users in Germany and China.

    “Based on experience that we gain from these 2 sides, we will go to the next decision at the end of this year, beginning of next year.” Hallberg said.

    The 4G World 2009 Conference will be held at the McCormick Center in Chicago, Illinois. It will feature mobile WiMAX, WiFi, HSPA and LTE technologies and how they will influence the business and technical aspects of the new 4G network.

    Listen to the whole interview

  • Verizon to Offer New Encryption Services For Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

    Verizon is expanding its encryption service to cover documents and e-mail and launches new services for small and medium-sized businesses.

    Encrypted Docs enables the user to encrypt files and folders and determine who can access, read and write to the file or folder, enforcing privacy policies. As a result, important data – such as intellectual property, customer records, contracts, human resource files and highly sensitive negotiations – can be safeguarded via encryption.

    According to the company, e-mail encryption and newly added data encryption services will help prevent privacy leaks, unauthorized access and help keep documents private in case of theft or loss.

    Verizon Encrypted Mail service, which has been available since December 2005, verifies and authenticates that the message has not been altered, allows it to be opened only by the intended recipient, and allows users to lock e-mail that they receive so it cannot be viewed by others.

    Both services, available through the privacy packages (such as Data Protection Paks) offered by Verizon, are based on PKI, X.509 and S/MIME encryption standards.

    The company claims the services are best suited for businesses that have to comply with government regulations, and businesses that have employees who work at remote locations, where data should be kept private at all times to prevent loss or theft.

    "Typically, small businesses do not have the IT staff of large enterprises to manage the complexity involved with encryption services," said Mark Grosso, senior manager of business security products for Verizon.

    "Verizon is like a SMB’s CIO, offering small and medium-sized businesses an affordable, cost-effective suite of important Internet security services such as anti-virus protection, a remote backup and storage solution, and encryption services that will help ensure safeguarding the privacy of business’ data at every level. Plus, we offer our SMB customers 24 x 7 technical support," he added.

    How it works?

    For the encryption service, a user registers and downloads one plug-in for Encrypted Mail and Encrypted Docs. Before sending an e-mail message, users just click on the "Secure" button on their toolbar, and their message – along with any attachments – is immediately encrypted, digitally signed and sent to the recipient. If the recipient is another registered Encrypted Mail user, the user can open the message after entering his or her password.

    See a demonstration of Encrypted Mail here, and Encrypted Docs here.

    According to Verizon, the most robust privacy package is Data Protection Premium. Starting at $9.99 per month, it includes Encrypted Mail and Encrypted Docs together with the Verizon Internet Security Suite for Internet protection of up to 3 PCs, plus Online Backup and Sharing. This offer combines data encryption services with anti-virus, firewall, anti-spyware, fraud protection and content management, plus online storage and much more, whether in the office or on-the-go.

    "An organization needs to address its IT security at every layer, Grosso said. "While cost cutting is what all companies – particularly, the smaller ones – strive for these days, it’s important to not cut privacy solutions. That’s a surefire way to kill a business."

  • BTI Receives Brocade Data Center Ready Status for Storage Networking Modules


    BTI Systems has announced that the BTI 7000 Series has additional client services modules, verified by Brocade Communications Systems, as compatible with Brocade-based SAN infrastructure.

    The Brocade Data Center Ready program is a testing and configuration initiative designed to foster end-to-end SAN interoperability. As part of the program, testing is conducted in SAN configurations that include a heterogeneous mix of servers, storage systems, Brocade switches, SAN management and enterprise applications, and other SAN technologies.

    Vendors receive Brocade Data Center Ready qualification after completing tests to confirm that vendors’ products meet interoperability guidelines.

    “Storage area networks are being deployed worldwide at a rapid rate as a scalable, high-performance networking foundation for storage environments. The Brocade Data Center Ready program is an example of our continued commitment to delivering end-to-end interoperability to customers,” said Ben Taft, Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at Brocade.

    BTI Systems certified the Dual 4G Multiprotocol Transponder (1, 2, 4G Fibre Channel), Dual 10G Multiprotocol Transponder (10G Fibre Channel), and the 10-port Multiprotocol Muxponder (1, 2, 4G Fibre Channel), complementing the Dual 1G and 2.5G Multiprotocol Transponders previously certified.

    Jason Smith    , Solutions Marketing and Certifications Program Manager of BTI Systems, claims the Brocade Data Center certification is a key industry stamp that is important to their customers.

    “They know that BTI Systems’ platforms meet the high standards of Brocade’s rigorous testing and they can be confident about the performance we deliver,” he said.

    The BTI 7000 Series delivers all the capabilities of large core network platforms in the industry’s most compact, modular, low power consumption, easy-to-use packet optical network system.

    BTI’s Intelligent Service Edge solutions provide wavelength and packet-level delivery of high capacity services such as video, storage, wired data, wireless data and voice, and media to the network edge.

  • Surround 3-D TV to Take Over the Living Rooms

    For the first time, a team of researchers at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), have designed a 9-panel, 3-D visualization display from HDTV LCD flat-screens developed by JVC.

    The technology, dubbed "NexCAVE," was inspired by Calit2’s StarCAVE virtual reality environment. The StarCAVE’s pentagon shape and 360-degree views make it possible for groups of scientists to venture into worlds as small as nanoparticles and as big as the cosmos.

    "It’s always been our dream to make a projector-free LCD flat panel CAVE," says Tom DeFanti, Calit2 Research Scientist. "The trick was to get the form of the huge StarCAVE into the space of a living room. We took a speculative leap by overlapping 9 panels, and it turned out better than we thought."

    When paired with polarized stereoscopic glasses, the NexCAVE’s modular, micropolarized panels and related software will make it possible for a broad range of scientists — from geologists and oceanographers to archaeologists and astronomers — to visualize massive datasets in three dimensions, at unprecedented speeds and at a level of detail impossible to obtain on a myopic desktop display.

    The NexCAVE’s data resolution is close to human visual acuity (or 20/20 vision). The 9-panel, 3-column prototype that the team developed for Calit2’s VirtuLab has a 6000×1500 pixel resolution, while the 21-panel, 7-column version boasts 15,000×1500-pixel resolution.

    "The NexCAVE’s technology delivers a faithful, deep 3-D experience with great color saturation, contrast and really good stereo separation," explains DeFanti. "The JVC panels’ xpol technology circularly polarizes successive lines of the screen clockwise and anticlockwise and the glasses you wear make you see, in each eye, either the clockwise or anticlockwise images. This way, the data appears in three dimensions. Since these HDTVs are very bright, 3-D data in motion can be viewed in a very bright environment, even with the lights in the room on”.

    The NexCAVE’s LCD screens are scalloped "like turtle shells," which allows the screens’ bezels (frames) to be minimized by half because the screens are tucked behind one another.

    DeFanti and his colleagues developed the NexCAVE technology at the behest of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), which established a special partnership with UC San Diego last year to collaborate on visualization and virtual-reality research.

    The KAUST campus includes a Geometric Modeling and Scientific Visualization Research Center featuring a 21-panel NexCAVE and several other new visualization displays developed at Calit2.

    According to DeFanti the team’s next goal is to make a screens that won’t require the use of special glasses. "And someday we hope to have organic LED screens with no bezels,” he concludes.

  • Motorola to Feature Blockbuster Movie Download Service in Next Generation Handsets

    Blockbuster, a provider of in-home movie and game entertainment, announced plans to feature the BLOCKBUSTER OnDemand movie download service in select Motorola phones. Through the agreement next generation Motorola phones will feature the OnDemand application, providing on-the-go download access to Blockbuster’s digital library of current movies.

    Earlier this year, Motorola announced it is to unveil Android powered handsets in the fourth quarter.

    Blockbuster launched a movie rental service via set-top boxes last year. It offered a STB made by 2Wire that plays downloaded movies. Renting a movie for online playback at Blockbuster generally costs between $1.99 and $3.99.

    In March this year, Blockbuster and TiVo announced that they are working to make Blockbuster’s service available on all TiVo Series2 and Series3 DVRs (including the HD and HD XL models) in the second half of 2009.

    The agreement with Motorola it’s a part of the company’s new digital strategy to provide its library of digital entertainment to mobile devices.

    "Motorola is a recognized global communications leader and extending the BLOCKBUSTER brand and our OnDemand service into their portfolio of innovative new phones is a natural extension of our digital strategy," said Kevin Lewis, Senior Vice President of Digital Entertainment for Blockbuster.

    "Mobile video entertainment is exploding, as consumers are demanding the widest selection of content: the movies they love in their living room and on their PC, now also available on their mobile phone, while on the go," added Christy Wyatt, Vice President of Software Platforms, Applications and Ecosystem of Motorola Mobile Devices.

    According to Blockbuster the agreement will also further the company’s multi-channel vision of eventually Blockbuster enabling customers to use OnDemand application with multiple consumer electronics and portable devices, such as PCs, PMPs, Blu-ray Disc players, PVRs, set-top boxes, mobile phones and Web-connected TVs, to search Blockbuster’s entire catalog of entertainment content and download available titles for rent or purchase, schedule movies for mail delivery through, or reserve titles for in-store pick-up.

  • Samsung to Incorporate Rovi’s IPG Technology into Its HDTVs

    Rovi and Samsung announced a multi-year, multi-country technology and patent licensing agreement that allows Samsung to incorporate Rovi’s interactive program guide (IPG) technologies into its next-generation TVs and other consumer electronics devices.

    Rovi’s IPG technologies enable CE manufacturers to integrate interactive, on-screen listings into their products to help viewers navigate, sort, select, and schedule television programming.

    According to the company, Rovi’s guide technologies are designed to provide consumers with “simple and intuitive” access to digital media content of all types as well as a personalized home entertainment experience “that makes it easy for consumers to find what they want, when they want it”.

    Third party guide developers can license Rovi interactive program guide products and technologies. Rovi IPGs are incorporated into consumer electronics products, including plasma, DLP, and LCD televisions as well as DVD recorder-based products. Patent licensing is also available to online and mobile providers.

    “As the choices in content, channels and viewing platforms increase exponentially, consumers need advanced guidance technologies that will help them find out ‘what’s on’,” said Tom Carson, executive vice president, sales and services of Rovi Corporation.

    Kyung Shik Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics added: “by working with Rovi, we are dedicated to bringing an advanced digital home entertainment experience that empowers consumers to find their favorite content on the television while also enabling them to discover new programming quickly and easily.”

    Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

    Rovi holds over 4,000 issued or pending patents and patent applications worldwide and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with numerous offices across the United States and around the world including Japan, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom.

  • Huawei to Deploy First Solar-Powered Base Transceiver Stations in Bangladesh

    Huawei, a provider of next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators, has been selected by Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Telenor, to deploy Bangladesh’s first solar-powered base transceiver stations.

    To provide mobile connectivity in rural areas, Huawei will install its fourth-generation base stations, using a solar and diesel generator hybrid power solution. The base stations will primarily be powered by harnessing solar energy without having to be linked to an electricity grid. The diesel generator will be used as a backup.

    Once deployed, the new system will improve GP’ s network performance by preventing service interruption, a previously persistent challenge in Bangladesh due to power instability. It will also lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, and reduce the cost of refueling and site visits, thereby lowering GP’ s total cost of ownership. The company claims these savings will offset GP’ s capital investment in just two-to-three years.

    "Huawei’ s competitive green power solution helps us utilize renewable energy and reduce our CO2 emissions while providing even better broadband services to our customers," said Oddvar Hesjedal, Chief Executive Officer of GP.

    According to Tony Zhang, President of Huawei Bangladesh, green technology is one of the company’s most important strategies and they will continue to pursue “cutting-edge, cost-lowering” green solutions for all of their operator customers in Bangladesh and around the world.

    Oddvar Hesjedal and Tony Zhang at the signing ceremony
     

    Huawei’s green solutions for wireless broadband networks use a combination of solar energy, wind power and diesel fuel and, to date, have been adopted by some telecom operators around the world, e.g. Vodafone, Warid and China Mobile.

    Grameenphone, a joint venture between Telenor of Norway (62%) and Grameen Telecom of Bangladesh (38%), is the largest telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh with more than 21 million subscribers as of March 2009. It has a nationwide EDGE-enabled network, covering nearly the entire population.

  • West & Central African Com: Infrastructure Sharing on the Sub-Saharan Market

    VIDEO INTERVIEW: Fazal Hussein, CEO of Helios Towers, was interviewed at the West & Central African Com conference held in Abuja, Nigeria.

    He talks about the Sub-Saharian market and he thinks the only way for the operators to go forward is to develop a lean architecture.

  • Core Logic to Deliver HD Graphics for Next-Generation Portable Media

    ARM announced that Core Logic, a Korea-based fabless semiconductor manufacturer, has licensed the ARM Mali-400 MP multicore graphics processing unit (GPU) to enable enhanced, high-definition entertainment and browsing experiences on smartphones, fully-featured multimedia phones, portable media players and personal navigation devices without compromising battery life.

    Four-core Mali-400 MP supports complex 2D and 3D multimedia applications at up to 1080p resolution and offers pixel processing rates from 300 million to more than 1G pixels per second. This enables manufacturers of mobile phones, PMPs and PNDs to deliver console-quality gaming, high-quality navigation, spectacular user interfaces and web-browsing to their end users, while benefiting from the lowest memory bandwidth usage of any embedded GPU, leading to very low power consumption.

    The new Mali-400 also supports Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG standards, further enhancing user experiences on a wide range of digital devices.

    Kwang Pyuk Suh, CEO of Core Logic, said that the company is seeing massive demand for ever higher specification graphics on all multimedia mobile devices, PMPs and PNDs.

    “Device manufacturers are continually looking for technologies that enable them to develop the next high-end, must-have gadget to set them apart from the competition. Additionally, users are becoming increasingly discerning about getting the best out of their chosen applications at home and on the go,” he added.

    Core Logic, whose customers include several major Korean manufacturers, will also become part of the ARM Mali Graphics Ecosystem that brings together a community of developers, technology partners, software vendors and content companies to collaborate and reduce the cost of graphics ownership.

    According to Lance Howarth, general manager of ARM Media Processing Division, the new GPU will enable Core Logic to develop the highest quality multimedia system-on-a-chip technology “that will lie at the heart of next generation digital entertainment and communication devices”.

    “Mali-400 MP and other Mali GPUs are fully compatible with the ARM CPUs that power billions of digital devices around the world. This, combined with the complete Mali graphics stack and the ARM Mali Ecosystem, brings lowered development costs and reduced time to market,” said Howarth.