Category: gadgets and technology

Last month, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that would require the FCC to adopt a proposal for a digital TV standard developed by dozens of cable operators and consumer electronics companies. The proposal pushes for a national “plug-and-play” standard for digital TVs that would not require set-top boxes. Its approval would mean that cable subscribers could directly connect integrated digital TV receivers to their cable systems to receive programming. The proposal would also let consumer electronics makers sell retail products such as digital video recorders that are also digital-cable ready.

“The traditional set-top-box vendors will start to build solutions that are retail consumer-friendly, while the traditional consumer electronics vendors will encroach onto the set-top turf by offering DVD recorders, game consoles and (digital video recorders) that are digital-cable ready,” Vamsi Sistla, a senior analyst with ABI, said in a statement.

If cable companies do not adapt to changing technology and business models, Sistla said, then consumer electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba and Samsung will be in a position to steal their market share. [CNET News.com]

Video on demand is a growing business for cable companies, according to a new study that predicts that 15 million cable subscribers worldwide will be paying for the feature by 2007.

Video on demand (VOD) is a service offered by cable companies that lets subscribers order movies any time of day and control the video like a recording. Unlike pay-per-view services, subscribers can pause, rewind or fast-forward scenes from the movies and TV shows they order.

Although VOD is still in its infancy, cable companies could see incremental benefits as they begin to offer these services. Cable companies have been upgrading their systems to digital, which allows them to offer more channels and more features such as VOD. The companies have been pushing their subscribers to upgrade so they can sell new features that can be sold only on a digital network. [News.com]

On the surface it may seem that Verizon’s push to talk service is a direct threat to Nextel, but clearly this is a weaker offering… 4-8 seconds to connect??? Who would ever use it? I can’t see this being productive between 2 people, let alone up to 10.

Key features of the launch:
–Walkie-talkie functionality; to connect you scroll down a list instead of dialing a phone number and connect to groups of up to 10 people. Numbers can be added on the phone itself or pushed to it from a web site.
–Presence aware – like instant messaging, you can see who is/isn’t available for a quick chat
–Requires a dedicated handset – at launch, only a Motorola v60p will work with the service. This phone is a monochrome flip phone model, does not support BREW (Verizon’s Get It Now) or Java applets, and is relatively pricey at $149/$199 with 1 year/2 year contract. On the positive side, it appears to be considerably smaller and lighter than any of Nextel’s handsets (Motorola iDen phones that are large, heavy, and completely indestructable).
–Expensive service targeting business users – $20 per month on top of America’s Choice plans, so service starts at $60/month for 400 minutes and unlimited Push To Talk
–Verizon will not comment on latency, which is assumed to be in the 4 to 8 second range
–Verizon is calling the service “Push To Talk,” gleefully inviting a lawsuit from Nextel, which copyrighted the term. I like calling all PTT offerings “Click to Chat” because the whole name thing is rather silly, and this amuses me in some small way.

There are two ways to look at this:
–When compared to Nextel’s service, it’s not all that compelling: twice as expensive, more limited handset choice, much higher latency (see my research for why latency matters, also why developing Click To Chat to compete with Nextel misses the point).
–When viewed on its own, it’s a fair 1.0 effort: they’re targeting the wrong audience and there’s plenty of room for future enhancements (such as plans and phones targeted towards teens and young adults, call list management tools for telecom managers, much better performance), but it gives customers who want walkie talkie and group messaging on the Verizon network the ability to do so. And you could argue that $20/month is still reasonable for unlimited use.
[Avi Greengart]

SACRAMENTO, Calif.–A handful of technology and consumer privacy experts testifying at a California Senate hearing Monday called for regulation of a controversial technology designed to wirelessly monitor everything from clothing to currency.

The hearing, presided over by state Sen. Debra Bowen, focused on an emerging area of technology that’s known as radio frequency identification (RFID). Retailers and manufacturers in the United States and Europe, including Wal-Mart Stores, have begun testing RFID systems, which use millions of special sensors to automatically detect the movement of merchandise in stores and monitor inventory in warehouses.

Proponents hail the technology as the next-generation bar code, allowing merchants and manufacturers to operate more efficiently and cut down on theft.

Privacy activists worry, however, that the unchecked use of RFID could end up trampling consumer privacy by allowing retailers to gather unprecedented amounts of information about activity in their stores and link it to customer information databases. They also worry about the possibility that companies, governments and would-be thieves might be able to monitor people’s personal belongings, embedded with tiny RFID microchips, after they are purchased. [News.com]

Palm today announced the new name it will adopt following the spin-off this fall of PalmSource and acquisition of Handspring. Palm Solutions groups will become “palmOne” and will reflect the company s handheld computer hardware and software solutions business and encompass the subbrands Zire and Tungsten, as well as Treo.
[PalmInfocenter]

On Monday, Airgo will announce a chip set that extends the speed at which data can be delivered to a computer by wireless radio signal, to as much as 108 megabits a second. Current Wi-Fi standards are capable of data speeds ranging from 11 to 54 megabits a second. The company says the signal can be sent farther as well — from two to six times as far as current Wi-Fi technology, which typically reaches only about 100 to 150 feet from a transmitter connected to the Internet. [New York Times: Technology]

As prices on electronics fall, retailers must rely on sales volume, not profit margin, to survive.
[New York Times: Technology]