By next year, the speed of Wi-Fi networks could be significantly faster thanks to a new generation of technology being announced today by the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig).
The WiGig 1.0 standard combines two different wireless technologies: 60-gigahertz wireless and Wi-Fi. The first technology uses the 60-gigahertz band of the wireless spectrum to create a 10-meter range wireless network. It also uses something called “beamforming” to extend the range of the 60-gigahertz network beyond 10 meters. The 60-gigahertz wireless network can support devices inside a room and can transfer data at 7 gigabits per second, or about 10 times faster than the fastest Wi-Fi networking available, 802.11n, which transfers data at 600 megabits per second.
Beyond the 10-meter range, whereupon the first technology attenuates, the network will automatically switch to Wi-Fi at the speed of 600 megabits per second. That network will have a 100-meter range, just like traditional 802.11n.
Mark Grodzinski, WiGig marketing chair and vice president of marketing at Wilocity, said in an interview that the completed specification will be made available to partners in the first quarter and that products are expected to launch for consumers sometime in 2010. More than 25 companies support the new standard, including giant chip makers such as Intel, Broadcom and Texas Instruments. New members in the group being announced today include Nvidia, TMC, SK Telecom and Advanced Micro Devices.
The WiGig standard will have competition. The rival Wireless High Definition Interface (WHDI) group completed its standard this week as well and will create a network that can transfer data in the 5-gigahertz spectrum at speeds up to 3 gigabits a second, with a range of 100 meters. And SiBEAM is heading the Wireless HD consortium to make 60-gigahertz wireless chips for networking inside a room. Some of the members such as Samsung and Sony are betting on all three horses.
The wireless chips from all three groups will likely be built into next-generation PCs, mobile handsets, TVs, displays, Blu-ray players, digital cameras and a variety of other gadgets. WHDI focuses on transferring video, while SiBEAM may focus on replacing cables in a home electronics network. WiGig, meanwhile, accommodates both the Wi-Fi and WHDI uses. Consumers may be confused by the three different standards, but Grodzinski says the competition will likely shake out as users figure out what network best suits them.
The demand will likely materialize for these wireless networks as consumers start sending video wirelessly from one room to another and multiple users try to watch different web-based videos in the home at the same time. The WiGig group has been working for about two years on the standard.
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WiGig alliance creates next-generation wireless networking standard
Robots to get their own operating system – tech – 10 August 2009 – New Scientist
THE UBot whizzes around a carpeted conference room on its Segway-like wheels, holding aloft a yellow balloon. It hands the balloon to a three-fingered robotic arm named WAM, which gingerly accepts the gift.
Cameras click. “It blows my mind to see robots collaborating like this,” says William Townsend, CEO of Barrett Technology, which developed WAM.
The robots were just two of the multitude on display last month at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Pasadena, California. But this happy meeting of robotic beings hides a serious problem: while the robots might be collaborating, those making them are not. Each robot is individually manufactured to meet a specific need and more than likely built in isolation.
This sorry state of affairs is set to change. Roboticists have begun to think about what robots have in common and what aspects of their construction can be standardised, hopefully resulting in a basic operating system everyone can use. This would let roboticists focus their attention on taking the technology forward.
One of the main sticking points is that robots are typically quite unlike one another. “It’s easier to build everything from the ground up right now because each team’s requirements are so different,” says Anne-Marie Bourcier of Aldebaran Robotics in Paris, France, which makes a half-metre-tall humanoid called Nao (pictured).
Some robots, like Nao, are almost autonomous. Others, like the UBot, are semi-autonomous, meaning they perform some acts, such as balancing, on their own, while other tasks, like steering, are left to a human operator.
Also, every research robot is designed for a specific objective. The UBot’s key ability is that it can balance itself, even when bumped – crucial if robots are to one day work alongside clumsy human beings. The Nao, on the other hand, can walk and even perform a kung-fu routine, as long as it is on a flat, smooth surface. But it can’t balance itself as robustly as the UBot and won’t easily be able to learn how.
On top of all this, each robot has its own unique hardware and software, so capabilities like balance implemented on one robot cannot easily be transferred to others.
Bourcier sees this changing if robotics advances in a manner similar to personal computing. For computers, the widespread adoption of Microsoft’s Disk Operating System (DOS), and later Windows, allowed programmers without detailed knowledge of the underlying hardware and file systems to build new applications and build on the work of others.
Programmers could build new applications without detailed knowledge of the underlying hardwareBringing robotics to this point won’t be easy, though. “Robotics is at the stage where personal computing was about 30 years ago,” says Chad Jenkins of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Like the home-brew computers of the late 70s and early 80s, robots used for research today often have a unique operating system (OS). “But at some point we have to come together to use the same resources,” says Jenkins.
This desire has its roots in frustration, says Brian Gerkey of the robotics research firm Willow Garage in Menlo Park, California. “People reinvent the wheel over and over and over, doing things that are not at all central to what they’re trying to do.”
For example, if someone is studying object recognition, they want to design better object-recognition algorithms, not write code to control the robot’s wheels. “You know that those things have been done before, probably better,” says Gerkey. But without a common OS, sharing code is nearly impossible.
The challenge of building a robot OS for widespread adoption is greater than that for computers. “The problems that a computer solves are fairly well defined. There is a very clear mathematical notion of computation,” says Gerkey. “There’s not the same kind of clear abstraction about interacting with the physical world.”
Nevertheless, roboticists are starting to make some headway.The Robot Operating System or ROS is an open-source set of programs meant to serve as a common platform for a wide range of robotics research. It is being developed and used by teams at Stanford University in California, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Munich, Germany, among others.
ROS has software commands that, for instance, provide ways of controlling a robot’s navigation, and its arms, grippers and sensors, without needing details of how the hardware functions. The system also includes high-level commands for actions like image recognition and even opening doors. When ROS boots up on a robot’s computer, it asks for a description of the robot that includes things like the length of its arm segments and how the joints rotate. It then makes this information available to the higher-level algorithms.
A standard OS would also help researchers focus on a key aspect that so far has been lacking in robotics: reproducibility.
Often, if a team invents, say, a better navigation system, they will publish the results but not the software code. Not only are others unable to build on this discovery, they cannot independently verify the result. “It’s useful to have people in a sense constrained by a common platform,” says Giorgio Metta, a robotics researcher at the Italian Insitute of Technology in Genoa. “They [will be] forced to do things that work, because somebody else can check. I think this is important, to make it a bit more scientifically oriented.”
ROS is not the only robotic operating system vying to be the standard. Microsoft, for example, is trying to create a “Windows for robots” with its Robotics Developer Studio, a product that has been available since 2007.
Gerkey hopes to one day see a robot “app store” where a person could download a program for their robot and have it work as easily as an iPhone app. “That will mean that we have solved a lot of difficult problems,” he says.
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Robots to get their own operating system
Office Communicator Team Blog : Communicator Mobile Just Got Better
Following the release of Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 in January, the Communicator team continued to work on additional features and improved upon some of the existing ones. Everything is now in an update that’s ready to use.
One of our goals with this update was to make it easier to join conferences while on the go. Instead of using conference dial-ins and entry codes, you can now join conferences with the single click of a button. This capability is available for all meetings scheduled using the new UC Conferencing capability in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. As you can see in the screenshot below, the process is quick and simple. When you open a UC conference invitation in Outlook Mobile, you will see a “Join Conference” option. Clicking on this option will automatically connect conference participants to the call as authenticated users.
Still subject to roaming charges? We have added an option to help you avoid them. When you are outside of your provider’s network, Communicator will not log in to a roaming network. As soon as you are back in your provider’s network, Communicator will log in automatically for you. All you have to do is select the option and Communicator will take care of the rest.
We’ve also done some work to get Communicator Mobile ready for the Windows Mobile 6.5 release this fall. A new plug-in will integrate nicely with the Home screen. In addition to looking good, it will show your presence status and the number of ongoing conversations.
Another benefit of Windows Mobile 6.5 is that it gives you the capability to make a call via work (the ability to place outbound calls using your work identity) directly from your phone dialer. With this enhancement users can dial extension numbers to call their colleagues.
The team also improved the overall experience of making calls via work. In the previous release, you made your call via work and then answered the incoming call to complete the connection. Now Communicator Mobile completes the connection for you by automatically accepting the incoming call.
How to get it
The Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 update is accessible via your mobile phone at www.GetCoMo.com or on the Microsoft Download Web site.
from here by Marc Boyer
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Communicator Mobile Just Got Better
Acer’s Aspire Predator gaming rig gets even faster, stays just as orange
Just a few weeks too late for a Transformers 2 tie-in, Acer has announced a new revision of its Aspire G desktop, a.k.a. Predator. It shares the same case with the earlier edition that hit the US of A late last year, but naturally has some better specs this time ’round. The CPU is now one of Intel’s new Core i7 950’s running at 3.06GHz, up to 12GB of DDR3 RAM is on offer, while more permanent storage is offered by a 1TB HDD and a Blu-ray reader. A pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 graphics cards keep the pixels flowing over four DVI-D ports, and dual Gigabit Ethernet is on offer for those about to rock shotgun network connections. All that clad in a brilliant orange case that looks like it rolled off the Lamborghini production line, though at ¥259,800 ($2,700ish) it’s a lot cheaper than the Murciélago LP 670-4 Superveloce you’ve been drooling over. No word on American availability, but since the last one took about four months to make it this way perhaps we’ll see this one by year’s end.
HTC Hero running Android and Sense UI leaks from HTC’s own website (updated, official, video)
As we prepare for HTC’s official launch event today, we’re starting to see some details appear on HTC’s own website of the much rumored Hero. Through some URL trickery, we’ve managed to unearth several details that confirm the previous rumors. Hero includes the new HTC Sense widget-based interface that puts at-a-glance info right up front on the home screen where it belongs. A new Scenes profile feature lets you transform your phones focus from business to weekend mode. Viewing your contacts shows the usual data in addition to the interactions you’ve had through social networking status updates and photos from the likes of Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter. A dedicated search button searches the phone as well as services like Twitter. In fact, like Palm’s Pre, the HTC Hero seems ready to fully integrate your local data with all your subscribed social media sites. The biggest deal here, however, might just be that HTC is touting this as the first Android device to support Flash out of the box.Inside you’ll find Qualcomm’s MSM7200A proc running Android at 528MHz, 512MB/288MB ROM/RAM, 3.2-inch TFT-LCD with 320 x 480 pixel rez, 900/2100MHz HSPA and Quad-band GSM, trackball, GPS, 802.11b/g WiFi, 3.5mm audio jack, G-sensor, compass, and 5 megapixel auto-focus cam with microSD expansion. It’s all there baby. The White version of the device has an industry-first Teflon coating (right, just like your pans) to keep things clean and grime free. Multi-touch and anti-fingerprint coating too. Hero arrives in Europe in July with T-Mobile and Orange, Asia later in the summer, and North America even later in 2009. Stay tuned for a full hands-on, but for now, enjoy the press shots in the gallery below and the new video after the break!
Apple iPhone 3G S and iPhone OS 3.0 | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD
Apple Inc.’s iPhone has been a smashing success, redefining the smart-phone market and creating a new hand-held computing platform that has attracted over 50,000 third-party apps, or software programs, in less than a year. With its nearly identical sibling, the iPod Touch, it has sold a combined 40 million units since June 2007, when the computer maker plunged into the phone business.
But the iPhone is drawing increasing competition from entrenched smart-phone makers anxious to emulate the upstart. The most significant of these is Palm’s (PALM) impressive new Pre, which is off to a good start with an estimated 100,000 or so units sold since it launched on June 6.
So, like a shark, Apple (AAPL) must keep moving. This week, it is introducing two new products designed to consolidate and increase its position as the leader in this new generation of hand-held computers. I’ve been testing both and I like them a lot, with some minor caveats.
One of the new products is a refreshed model of the iPhone itself, called the iPhone 3G S. It looks the same, but offers more speed, more memory, more battery life, and a few new features, including video recording and a better camera for still photos.
The second is OS 3.0, the third version of the iPhone’s operating system, which comes on the 3G S and also can be installed on all prior iPhones and Touches. It includes a much longer list of added features, some innovative and some long overdue catch-ups to other phones. These include such widely requested capabilities as cut, copy and paste; systemwide searching; a wider virtual keyboard; and a feature called MMS that allows users to send photos and videos directly to other phones without using email.
iPhone ChartApple last week also made a bold business move to complement these new products. It decided to keep making the current model, the iPhone 3G, and to slash its price by 50%, to $99. That’s an unheard-of price tag for a pocket computer of this power and versatility, and gives millions of additional consumers a reason to choose the iPhone instead of a competitor.
In my tests, both the new phone and the new operating system performed well, with a few small exceptions. I believe the two strengthen the iPhone platform, make it likely the iPhone will continue to attract scads of apps, and are good for consumers.
But I also regard these changes as more evolutionary than revolutionary, and I don’t think this latest iPhone is as compelling an upgrade for the average user as the 3G model was last year for owners of the original 2007 iPhone.
Current iPhone owners can get an improved product by merely sticking with their existing phones and upgrading to the feature-laden new operating system, which is free (it costs $10 for iPod Touch owners), rather than shelling out at least $199 for the new iPhone 3G S. And many new iPhone buyers can opt for the $99 3G model, which is not only cheaper, but also greatly improved by the new OS 3.0.
On the other hand, power users will crave the new model’s much-better performance, battery life, storage and other features. And some will want the new model because, unlike the current model, it’s capable of handling a new cellular network feature that, in the next few years, will offer double the current data speeds.
The new, free operating system is available for download starting June 17. The iPhone 3G S will go on sale June 19 for $199 for a version with 16 gigabytes of memory, and $299 for 32 gigabytes of memory. Those memory capacities are double the amounts offered on the previous model last year at the same prices, and far exceed the built-in memory on most competing smart phones.
These prices are for new U.S. customers on the AT&T network, plus current owners who are eligible for what AT&T (T) calls a “standard” upgrade. If you already own an older iPhone, you could pay $200 more to upgrade, depending on how far along you are in your two-year service contract and how much you spend monthly. But AT&T, stung by criticism in recent days, has just decided to offer the lower, new-customer prices at launch to iPhone 3G owners eligible for upgrades at any time up to Sept. 30 of this year, even if they were originally told they’d have to pay the $200 premium.
Before I detail the new features and how they worked in my tests, let me state up-front what the new iPhone and its new operating system don’t deliver. The iPhone still lacks a physical keyboard. It still can’t run more than one third-party app at a time, as the Pre does. Its otherwise excellent Web browser still can’t play videos created in Adobe’s Flash software, which is widely used on the Web. And it still isn’t available on any U.S. carrier besides AT&T.
Also, AT&T won’t enable MMS until late this summer, even though dozens of other iPhone carriers in other countries are doing so immediately. And AT&T hasn’t set a date by which it will offer tethering, a new iPhone feature that allows the device to be used as a modem for a laptop. Other carriers in other countries are allowing this right away.
Here’s a rundown of the most important new features of both the new hardware and software, and how they performed in my tests.
The iPhone 3G SSpeed: To me, this is the most important feature of the new iPhone 3G S. In fact, the “S” in the name stands for speed. During my week of testing, the new model proved dramatically snappier in every way than my iPhone 3G. Its processor is 50% faster than in the prior model, and it sports a new graphics chip.
Applications opened much more quickly. Web pages loaded far faster. The camera was ready to use almost instantly. And I never once saw the occasional, annoying iPhone behavior where you strike a key while typing and it sits there, seemingly stuck, before you can continue.
Cellular-data speeds were about the same, but in repeated testing on different Wi-Fi networks, the 3G S racked up speeds 30% to 50% faster than on the 3G running at the same time on the same networks.
Battery Life: On my 3G iPhone, I usually could make it through the day, but it was often a close call, with the battery indicator winding up in the red. By contrast, the new model did much better, never hitting the red zone and rarely requiring interim charging at the office or in the car, even though, because I was testing it, I was pounding it much harder than usual, making more voice calls, playing lots of videos and music, trying numerous apps, constantly downloading email from two accounts, and syncing two calendars over the air.
Apple claims about the same talk time for the new model as on the old, and about the same Web-surfing time over the cellular network. But it says the 3G S gets about 50% more battery life when playing videos or surfing the Internet over Wi-Fi and 25% more time — an astounding 30 hours — for continuous music playback.
Memory: With the new 32-gigabyte model, I was able to store over 3,000 songs, more than 1,600 photos, 74 videos, 67 applications, 400 emails, nearly 1,000 contacts, months of calendar data, and dozens of documents, and still have 5 gigabytes left over—more than most phones offer out of the box.
Camera: The new model’s camera has a 3 megapixel resolution, up from 2 megapixels, and has autofocus and a feature that lets you tap the screen to change the focus to an object or person in the background of a shot. It still lacks zoom or a flash, though it does better in low light. It also has a macro feature for close-up shots. In my tests, all of this worked, but I didn’t think the pictures it took were dramatically better than those on the old model, and it can’t compete with phones like Nokia’s (NOK) new $700 N97, which has a 5-megapixel camera with zoom.
Video: The new video recorder worked well, even in low light, and lets you post videos directly to YouTube, among other places. You can also trim your videos right on the phone. This all worked well, but the videos aren’t high definition, and pale in comparison to those on the latest HD model of the popular $229 Flip pocket camcorder.
Voice Control: By simply holding down the new iPhone’s home button, you can dial contacts and control music playback by uttering voice commands. The phone will even tell you which song is playing. Like most voice-recognition systems, this one isn’t perfect. But it worked most of the time.
iphone-3gs-compass
Compass: I don’t consider this important for most users, but it did work when I was walking or driving. It can orient maps in the direction you’re heading.
Small Touches: You can optionally turn on a new battery indicator that shows a precise percentage of battery life left. The screen has a new coating that resists oil and grease from fingerprints.
Downsides: The new phone crashed on me twice during my tests. Once, the voice-control feature killed the sound on the built-in iPod, requiring a reboot. But I couldn’t replicate this problem. Another time, the phone froze while downloading a TV show. Apple blamed this on a prerelease server issue, and it didn’t happen again.
iPhone Operating System 3.0Copy, Cut and Paste: Apple is late with this common feature, but it’s the best implementation I’ve seen on a phone. In a text page, you just double tap on a word, and it is selected with little handles around it that let you expand or contract the selected area. Then, you just click on a copy icon that pops up over the selection. To paste, you tap elsewhere in the page, or even in another app, and a paste icon pops up. Click that icon, and the selected text is pasted in. It worked well in all my tests.
The feature works a bit differently for some Web pages, where you hold down your finger over an area and it selects a whole block of text, like a paragraph, but still has the handles that allow adjusting the selection. It also allows copying and pasting photos. You can also just select a word or a section or a whole page of text and delete it. And if you want to undo a paste, just shake the phone.
Some Web pages and third-party apps don’t yet support this feature, but most do.
Search: Before, you could search only in the Contacts app. Now, there are search features in Mail, Calendar, the built-in iPod and Notes. And there is a way to search the whole phone at once. You just hit the home button, slowly, twice, and a special search screen appears. Type in any phrase, and it brings up every instance in multiple apps.
This is another catch-up feature, but it works well. For instance, when I searched for the word “Phil,” it brought up songs by Phil Collins, a note about Philadelphia, calendar items mentioning people named Phil or Phillips, emails to or from people with those names, and contacts for people named Phil or Phillips.
In email, the search function will even find messages that aren’t on your phone but that are stored on the servers of certain email services. For instance, I was able to almost instantly find emails from two years ago stored on Google’s (GOOG) Gmail.
One downside — in email, search looks for words only in email headers, not in the body of the messages.
Landscape Keyboard: In older iPods, the only built-in program that supported a wider, landscape keyboard, which is better for thumb typing, was the Web browser. Now, you can turn the phone horizontally and use a landscape keyboard in the Mail, Messages and Notes programs as well.
Find My iPhone: If you belong to Apple’s $99 a year MobileMe service, you can now locate a lost iPhone on a map on any computer, send the iPhone a message saying how to return it to you, and cause it to emit a beep, even if the sound is turned off. I tested this and it worked well. You can even remotely wipe all your data off the phone.
Voice Memos: The OS includes a Voice Memo app that lets you dictate reminders or other messages, and then edit and email them. I found it worked well.
Navigation: Another catch-up feature, turn-by-turn navigation with voice prompts, is also now supported. I tested this with a third-party app called Gokivo, and it did OK, though the developer admits to a prerelease bug I encountered.
Auto-Authentication: In the new OS, the iPhone can remember your log-in credentials for commercial Wi-Fi hotspot services, so you don’t have to enter them again and again. Unfortunately, in my tests with the AT&T Wi-Fi service, this failed repeatedly in several Starbucks (SBUX) shops. Apple blames a glitch in my prerelease phone’s SIM card.
Push Notification: To make up for its lack of multitasking, the new iPhone OS has a feature where third-party apps can notify you of new events, like a sports score, or a new invitation to an online game. I tried this with a game called TapTap Revenge, and it worked fine.
Stocks: The built-in stock application now has much more detailed data, including market cap, news headlines and price/earnings ratio for each stock.
MMS and Tethering: I couldn’t test these useful features because my tests were all done on AT&T, which hasn’t rolled them out.
Minor Touches: You can now move an icon among screens with one continuous motion, instead of stopping at each screen. And there are two more screens to house icons. You can finally synchronize Notes with your PC or Mac. You also can now maintain both calendars and contacts synced wirelessly with online services and those synced via cable with your computer. And you can play games and transfer files wirelessly over Bluetooth with other iPods or Touches that are nearby.
Bottom Line: Both the new iPhone and iPhone OS are packed with features that make a great product even better. But, for many users, the software may be enough of a boost to keep them from buying the new model.
from here
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Apple iPhone 3G S and iPhone OS 3.0
im on the MSFT German page to download IE 8 and its splashed all over with Yahoo Advertising, yeserday as I was working with IE 7 ( i think ) it tried toe default recommend Yahoo as the default SE.
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a yahoo microsoft deal ?
HSTP: Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol – ReadWriteWeb
IBM’s research scientists in India have developed a technology that will offer users the ability to talk to the Web and create ‘voice’ sites using mobile phones according to a news article in the Economic Times today.
Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol (HSTP), a protocol designed to seamlessly connect telephony voice applications, will enable users to browse across voice applications by navigating the Hyperspeech (the voice hyperlink) content in a voice application.
“People will talk to the Web and the Web will respond. The research technology is analogous to the Internet. Unlike personal computers it will work on mobile phones where people can simply create their voice sites,” IBM India Research Laboratory Associate Director Manish Gupta told the Economic Times.
In a 2007 paper describing the technology (PDF), IBM scientists explain the concepts of Hyperspeech using this scenario:
Jonathan is a busy salesman who travels frequently. His work typically requires him to stay in a place for a few days. Once he is in a new place, he has to go around looking for grocery stores in his locality for his daily needs. He prefers taking phone numbers of the identified stores and places orders on the phone subsequently. Home delivery services deliver the goods to his home. However, often the home delivery boys don’t accept credit cards and even if some do, Jonathan tries paying by cash since he doesn’t want to share his credit card information with untrusted home delivery agents. This often causes problems since he often runs out of cash.
During his travel, he visits a city and finds out that there is a yellow pages service in the city that he can call up to receive phone numbers of several businesses. He promptly calls up the service and uses the telephony voice application to browse through the grocery stores in the vicinity of his hotel.
On Jonathan’s prompt, the call gets transferred to a grocery store and goes to the voice application of the store. Jonathan easily specifies the items he needs to buy from the cataloger. The order is placed and a delivery guarantee is made within half an hour
To his surprise, the grocery store’s voice application also accepts credit cards securely over phone. Jonathan selects the option and his call gets transferred to yet another voice application of a secure payment gateway. The secure payment gateway already knows about the amount of money the grocery store wants to charge to Jonathan, and securely authorizes the payment by taking in Jonathan’s credit card details and transacting with the credit card company’s authorization system.
The delivery boy comes within half-hour and delivers the goods to Jonathan.
Given India’s position as the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world, this new protocol may be particularly useful in India, where mobile phone sales are booming despite our current economic crisis.
If you’re interested in reading the entire paper, HSTP : Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol, you can download it here (PDF).
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HSTP: Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol – from IBM, India
This is a test, I have never created a blog post from within Word, let see how this goes, very pleased so far.
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This is a test from Word
great stuff !
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Windows 7 Touch and Multitouch on HP TouchSmart PC on Vimeo
Verizon Communications Inc. will market a snazzy Internet phone that works with any high-speed Internet service.
The new home phone, called the Hub, aims to retain existing landline customers and attract other carriers’ customers, the company said. The phone will deliver streaming video services and work with Verizon Wireless text messaging and location services.
![[Verizon Communication's Internet phone]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-AU045_hub_te_D_20090122152700.jpg)
Verizon Wireless
Verizon Communication’s Internet phone for the home offers streaming video and a location-finding service for Verizon Wireless customers.
Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC, will sell the phone in its retail stores beginning Feb. 1. It costs $199 after a $50 rebate. Customers must sign a two-year contract with a monthly charge of $35.
Internet calling has been available for several years, with providers such as Vonage Holdings Corp. offering equipment and services to route calls over the Internet. But the Hub adds a new level of sophistication, offering a range of video and information services beyond calling.
The cordless handset sits in a docking station with a 7-inch touch-screen display for streaming video with news, sports and traffic information. It can also display movie times and facilitate ticket purchases through Fandango. A voicemail feature presents voice messages similar to an email inbox.
It will also come with several features that integrate Verizon cellphones, including the ability to send text messages and Verizon’s Chaperone locator service, which lets users ping their children’s phones to see where they are on a map. In the future, the phone may also work with wireless services from other carriers including Sprint Nextel Corp. and AT&T Inc., executives said.
Mike Lanman, chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless, said the company isn’t concerned about selling the device even as consumers are tightening their belts. “People want access to information and media content,” he said. “I think it’s an investment families will be willing to make.”
Telecom providers don’t generally design and sell landline phones themselves, but they have started making their own sophisticated handsets in a bid to keep customers from dropping home phone service. AT&T’s HomeManager, a phone made by Samsung Electronics Co., has a similar look and feel to the Hub and many of the same information services, but it offers traditional phone service rather than Internet calling. Verizon has been slow into the Internet calling market. The carrier has had a limited Internet calling service called VoiceWing, but hasn’t marketed it extensively. It has, however, aggressively asserted its patents in the area, suing Vonage in 2007. The companies eventually settled.
Write to Amol Sharma at amol.sharma@wsj.com
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Verizon Web Phone Targets Home Users
A CES attendee checks out LG Electronics’ 3D LCD TV.
(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)
Three-dimensional TV is coming to a living room near you. But will the technology spur a consumer spending spree like digital and high-definition TV did before it? Or will 3D end up being the next big flop?
One thing is clear, TV manufacturers need something new to get people buying TVs. Over the last couple of years, TV manufacturers have experienced a sales boom as consumers upgrade to digital TVs in anticipation of the government’s mandated switch to digital TV broadcasts in February 2009. Eager shoppers have also been upgrading to high-definition TVs as movie studios, cable and satellite operators, and TV broadcasters have begun offering more programming in HD.
But as the economy worsens, the forecast for the TV market is looking grim. The LCD TV market is only expected to grow about 17 percent in terms of units shipped in 2009, according to research firm DisplaySearch. This is down from growth of about 29 percent in 2008. Plasma TV growth is also expected to suffer with the market only expected to grow by about 5 percent in 2009 compared with a 24 percent rise in 2008, DisplaySearch said.
As a result, TV makers are looking for the next hot thing to attract new consumers. And some are hoping 3D TVs could be it.
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, four of the top selling TV manufacturers–Samsung Electronics, Sony, LG Electronics and Panasonic–showed off their latest versions of 3D TVs. Panasonic set up a mini-home theater where its 103-inch, plasma 3D screen showed clips from New Line Cinema’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and Walt Disney Pictures’ animated film Bolt. They also showed high-definition 3D footage from NBC’s broadcast of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
While some manufacturers, such as Mitsubishi, Phillips, Samsung, and Sharp, have already begun selling 3D-ready TVs, the top four manufacturers plan to have new, advanced 3D TVs on sale toward the end of 2009 and into 2010.
But the big question is whether consumers, particularly American consumers, will be willing to upgrade to a new TV just because it has 3D. Pricing for today’s 3D ready TVs is comparable to other flat-screen HDTVs. Samsung and Mitsubishi currently sell their 3D-ready TVs for between $1,000 and $2,800, depending on functionality. These prices are in line with average prices for HDTVs that don’t offer 3D readiness.
Keisuke Suetsugi, a manager for the audio visual center at Panasonic, believes that even the newer, more advanced 3D TVs will not cost much more than TVs without 3D. So for consumers already in the market for a TV, adding 3D readiness might not add much cost. But will 3D be enough to compel cutting-edge consumers to replace their 2- or 3-year-old TVs? That’s what TV manufactures are hoping.
Three-dimensional movies have been around since the 1950s. And for most of its lifespan the technology has been seen more as a gimmick than something that truly enhances the movie-going experience. But newer technology and advanced special effects are helping 3D movies break into the mainstream.
TV makers believe that much of the demand for 3D will come from Hollywood, which is pushing 3D in a big way. Last year, DreamWorks announced that all its films will be produced for 3D production beginning in 2009. The company has partnered with chipmaker Intel to build processors that will help make 3D in the home a reality.
NBA basketball fans watch a live 3D broadcast of Game 2 of the 2007 NBA finals.
(Credit: NBA)
Sports leagues have also been experimenting with 3D technology. Both the National Basketball Association and the National Football League have broadcast events and games in 3D to movie theaters.
From a technical standpoint, the technology is available and mature enough today to make 3D TVs available at a reasonable cost to consumers. But there are still a few drawbacks that could prevent 3D TV from becoming the next big thing in home entertainment.
For one, to get the really cool, immersive 3D experience without getting a massive head-ache, consumers will have to wear special glasses when they’re watching TV in 3D. The glasses are needed because 3D imaging requires sending a different image to each eye. And the glasses help merge the images in the mind and trick the brain into thinking that it’s seeing a single 3D image.
I checked out Panasonic’s home theater in 3D. I must admit, the experience was phenomenal. I felt like I was on the floor at the Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing right alongside the hundreds of dancers and drummers. But without the glasses, the image looked fuzzy.
Panasonic’s Suetsugi admits that in a perfect world, consumers should be able to have the immersive 3D experience without wearing glasses. But he said that it will be at least 10 years before the technology is advanced enough to provide a similarly robust 3D experience without glasses.
“Glassless 3D would be ideal,” he said. “But it’s just not possible to do that now and get the same quality experience. You would need at least 50 times more pixels to get a display to provide the same 3D experience that we provide with our TV. We are still 10 years away from that kind of technology.”
Taesoo Park, a chief research engineer at LG, which makes 3D display monitors for advertising and digital signage, agrees. LG plans to start selling its 3D TVs, which require glasses, late in 2009 or in the beginning of 2010. Its glassless digital signs were also on display at CES.
“Glassless 3D is available today for digital signage and advertising,” Park explained. “But the technology is not ready for TVs, because it would hurt people’s eyes or give them a headache to look at today’s 3D displays for any length of time. It will be at least a decade before we can get the technology to make glassless TV a reality.”
That said, some manufacturers claim they have developed technology that doesn’t require glasses. Phillips uses a technology it calls WOWvx. 3M and Toshiba also showed off glassless 3D screens at CES. 3M has created a thin film technology that can be used to beam light selectively to the viewer’s right and left eyes.
But glasses aren’t the only thing that could hold back 3D adoption. Currently, there’s no standard way to get 3D footage from the movie studios or from a live broadcasts to the home. Companies, such as Panasonic, are already working on developing a standard. But industry watchers fear that competing standards could emerge and spur another “format” war like the one that pitted HD DVD and Blu-ray against each other.
Panasonic’s Suetsugi said he is hopeful that a common standard for 3D Blu-ray hardware, software, and TVs will emerge sometime this year, paving the way for 3D TV sales to pick up in 2010.
In addition to the standards issue, another hurdle for 3D TV has to do with the high production cost of shooting movies and events in 3D, as well as, the high cost of transporting the video across networks. Three-dimensional video requires multiple cameras for shooting. And it also requires multiple high-definition streams for transporting the video over carrier networks.
Regular standard definition television broadcasts consume more bandwidth capacity than other types of traffic like audio or text. High-definition video eats up even more. And it would likely take at least two full high-definition channels to broadcast live just one game in 3D.
This means that service providers, such as cable or satellite operators, would have to upgrade their infrastructure to handle the high bandwidth demands. Verizon, which is deploying fiber directly to consumers’ homes for its Fios service, is already in good shape. But others such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, are already finding it difficult to carve out enough bandwidth for regular HD video as well as Internet video on their networks.
“Transporting live, high-definition 3D streams is very expensive,” said Steve Hellmuth, executive vice president of technology and operations for the NBA. “So there has to be sufficient demand and a pool of content before satellite and cable operators will devote resources to delivering it. I really think that Hollywood will initially drive adoption of 3D in the home.”
3D is coming to a living room near you
