Archives for January 2011

This year at the world's gadget jamboree, the Consumer Electronics Association, 3DTV was being given the hard sell.

The same big push happened in 2010 with the likes of Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg telling the BBC that 3D was the future.

As for the viewing public and whether or not they will part with their hard earned dollars for a big ticket item like a 3DTV, well the forecasters are bullish.

A report by Companies and Markets this week estimates the market will hit $100bn by 2014.

Another report by DisplaySearch noted that 2010 was a dud in terms of sales with 3.2m sets shipping but the company said that figure will rise to nearly 18m for 2011.

The big barrier says DisplaySearch's Paul Gray is down to what's worth watching:

"People will only buy a 3DTV if there is enough content to watch, and in 2010, there simply was not enough 3D content available. As a result, only 4% of TVs 40" and larger had 3D capabilities."

James Cameron's hit with Avatar did woo millions of people to the big screen to watch 3D done at its best. Since then there have been a plethora of movies that reviewers say just seem to have had 3D slapped on them so the theatre can charge more for the privilege.

One big naysayer of 3D and the efforts by studios to render everything in this mould is Pulitzer prize winning film critic Roger Ebert who has written for the Chicago Sun Times since 1967.

He hates 3D and maintains our brains just can't handle the visuals.

"It doesn't work with our brains and it never will," Mr Ebert has opined in his latest column.

"The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous."

Helping Mr Ebert bring in the closing credits on 3D is an award winning editor and sound designer Walter Murch who won an Oscar for his sound editing on Apocalypse Now and the English Patient.

Mr Murch told Mr Ebert that watching a 3D movie is like "tapping your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, difficult."

It forces us as humans to do "something that 600 million years of evolution never prepared them for".

Read his explanation here in a letter he has written to the critic.

As far as Mr Ebert is concerned, Mr Murch's word on the whole affair now proves "3D doesn't work and never will. Case closed."

Do you agree or disagree with Mr Ebert and Mr Murch? Are you thinking of buying a 3DTV this year?

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Apple's earnings call one day after announcing that the boss Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence had to be one of the best attended since, well, the last time he took time off in 2009.

Apple may well have crushed its financial results with record quarterly revenue of $26.74bn and record net profits of $6bn but the company and investor analysts failed to please the scores of journalists listening in on the call.

Sure there was provocative talk about Android tablets being nothing more than "scaled up smart phones' and concerns about the supply line for iPhones, but all we wanted was for them to talk about Steve.

After the parade of impressive figures delivered by chief operating officer Tim Cook, who will be stepping in for Mr Jobs while he is away, we waited with baited breath poised for a mention of his fearsome leader.

Nothing.

OK not to worry. The analysts would take this one because of all the talk about how and whether Apple can survive without Mr Jobs at the helm. Shannon Cross of Cross Research got the first question after someone else bumbled with the line and couldn't get through.

Here we go I thought - the game is really on.

Alas, our hopes died at the first hurdle. Ms Shannon asked a perfectly fine question about iPhone shortages, but it wasn't the one the legion of journos on the line wanted to hear.

In fact in the hour long call not one person outright asked anything about Mr Jobs. It was the elephant in the room. Meanwhile on Twitter a firestorm of comments were swirling about the issue. The press are only allowed to listen in on the call, not probe with unwelcome questions.

The only analyst who got near to becoming our saviour was Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray when he quizzed Mr Cook about giving some guidance of a future roadmap.

It resulted in the first mention of Mr Jobs from Mr Cook.

"In my view, Apple is doing its best work ever," Mr Cook told analysts. "That we are all very happy with product pipeline, and the team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth of talent and a culture of innovation that Steve has driven in the company, and excellence has become a habit. And so we feel very, very confident about the future of the company."

And that was more or less it.

Afterwards I asked Mr Munster why not one analyst asked about the impact Mr Jobs' medical leave would have on the company or about future successors.

"You have one question to ask," he explained.

"There was no conspiracy among analysts and no gag order. People were free to ask what they wanted but it would have been a wasted question because we knew that we would get a dead end answer."

Mr Munster said the fact there was no mention of Mr Jobs in the opening statement told analysts it would have been a waste of time pursuing the issue:

"Steve Jobs said in his statement he wanted privacy and this was one way to do that - downplay the issue by not even mentioning it in the opening earnings statement. As an analyst it is a question we are clearly interested in but they clearly didn't want to talk about it. With one question to ask it was not one worth asking in these circumstances."

OK so for the moment that is Apple's prerogative. The latest figures are hardly likely to result in an uproar from shareholders, for the moment.

Outside of one infinite loop however, there have been scores of people commenting on the future of Apple without Mr Jobs at the helm day-to-day and what this latest absence means to a company so closely identified with one man.

I have also indulged in this latest sport by speaking to Adam Hanft of brand strategy firm Hanft Projects whose clients include Match.com and Virgin mobile. Mr Hanft said:

"Apple has pulled off what has been here-to-fore nearly impossible - which is becoming a brand that is both simplified and sophisticated at the same time. They have democratised technology and normally when a company does that they have a stigma of being less than cool. That hasn't happened with Apple because of their aesthetic value. Apple is the only brand that has managed to revolutionise access to technology, not make it daunting but make it fun and cool for the user.
 
"We talk about the 'Apple Tax' where you pay extra for Apple products because they are perceived as cool. Steve is a big part of that 'Apple Tax'. For the man on the street, they believe there is something very magical about the brand and they are buying a product that is a reflection of today's Henry Ford - cutting edge - and that association helps add brand value to an incalculable degree."

Mr Hanft said while there has been a strength in having Apple so closely identified with one man, that is also its weakness:

"There is a heightened emotional connection to the devices rather than the man himself. There is a huge amount of respect for him as an entrepreneur, a businessman, an innovator, a visionary and a leader but he does not exude warmth the way say Oprah does or Martha Stewart. He does not have the same accessibility factor as they do.
 
"There are a lot of companies out there playing catch-up fast from Sony to Samsung to Google and part of Apple's lead has been this brand duopoly between the products and Mr Jobs."

He also said that Mr Jobs' decision to remain as CEO with his hand on the tiller from a distance does not help the company or Mr Cook who will be running things in the interim:

"One way to put the company in the strongest possible position would be to make Mr Cook the acting CEO. It would send a strong and important signal that Mr Jobs has faith in Mr Cook to run things the way they are needed and of course the way he did when Mr Jobs took medical leave last time. To not do this reinforces the 'one man one company' issue."

I reported earlier in the week about the shock and sadness felt by many in technology circles at Mr Jobs' decision to take some time off to get better.

Among those extending their best is Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg who has become very friendly with Mr Jobs.

In a posting on his wall, Mr Zuckerberg wrote "Steve, you've done so much good for the world already. I hope you get better soon."

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The recent so-called "snowpocalypse" laid the north-east corner of America low and threw the festive travel plans of thousands of people into chaos because planes, trains and automobiles really couldn't go anywhere.

Take a look at this video called "Idiot with a Tripod" by film maker Jamie Stuart to show how it all looked on Boxing Day.

It has been estimated that the snow storms resulted in the cancellation of as many as 4,000 flights in and out of New York alone.

But one Fortune 100 company thinks that the devastation to flight schedules and travel plans needn't have been that bad if the technology they are developing had been in play.

Honeywell's Synthetic Enhanced Vision System has been described as something straight out of Star Wars that allows pilots to "see" even when true visibility is at zero.

"Pilots know how to fly an aircraft by looking out the window. It's the first thing they learn to do, but in bad weather or low visibility that isn't enough", said Chad Cundiff who is the vice president in charge of the SEVS project.

"What we can do with our technology is give a pilot a view of the world that is always clear and sunny regardless of what goes on outside his cockpit. We show a pilot what he really cares about like where is the runway, we show the airport, the terrain and mountains.
 
"We don't show clouds because obviously one of the benefits of the technology is to see through the clouds - to have it appear like a clear sunny day even when it is not. We can also show the energy, fuel being used, the state of the aircraft, how fast it is going and which direction they are heading to, if they have enough energy (fuel) to clear a particular mountain and where the aircraft is going to end up."

The system dubbed SEVS relies on a number of technologies including a rich 3D view of the world taken from a GPS database to real time images captured by infrared sensors that would show any planes or obstacles on the strip that otherwise couldn't be seen by looking out the cockpit window.

Mr Cundiff said Honeywell's "terrain database" is made up of data gathered over 800 million flight hours.

The biggest problem for most airports is low visibility. The Federal Aviation Authority reports that 55% of all flight delays are due to bad weather.

Generally speaking if an aircraft cannot see the runway at a height of 200ft, it will not be able or allowed to land. Mr Cundiff said Honeywell's system can lop at least 50ft off that limit.

"Our analysis shows that airports shut down because of weather and that what we find is that 50% of the time that additional 50 feet would open an airport up 50% of the time it is shut down. In other words we would be able to cut down in half the amount of airports that have to close because of weather issues."

Think about the amount of money an airport and an airline can save if they are able to take off and land without the weather grounding them. Also think of the expense when an aircraft has to land at an alternative airport because weather prevented it landing where it was scheduled to.

Mr Cundiff said that on average the cost of diverting a Boeing 737 jet is around $6,000 (£3,861.42).

Honeywell is busy testing their product and working with the authorities to consider using it.

To date Mr Cundiff told the BBC that Honeywell had clocked up 100 flight hours in tests involving aircraft and 1,000 flight hours in the lab. He estimated that it would be about five to 10 years before the system was deployed in commercial jets.

His belief is that business jets will be the first to use SEVS because "they tend to adopt technology a little bit faster and that is because they can make purchase decisions easier than airlines can".

The system is presently being tested by the military especially in helicopters because "they operate low to the ground and need that real-time obstacle awareness," added Mr Cundiff.

Bill Voss, president and chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation said he is intrigued by what SEVS promises it can do.

"This technology represents an important synthesis of synthetic information and enhanced vision. Both technologies have important benefits and both have combined seamlessly in this new technology. It opens up a whole new set of opportunities in the area of human factors.
 
"About a third of major airline accidents involve runway excursions (running off the runway). This technology integrates information that makes a pilot continuously aware of how much energy has to be dissipated, and where he or she is likely to touch down. That is a very important advantage.
 
"The addition of infrared vision adds another safety component. It allows the pilot to see objects on the runway such as animals, people, cars or other aircraft. Often these are invisible due to darkness and poor visibility. This system will put those objects right in the pilots face. It clearly adds another layer of protection."

Honeywell admits that while their system would have made quite a dent in the travel devastation caused by the recent snowstorms, it would not have eradicated the problem altogether.

"When you have got a few feet of snow on a runway, you are not going to take off. This technology doesn't melt snow and besides no-one wants to land in a blizzard. It makes the passengers nervous," said Mr Cundiff.

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Beware the Ides of March!

 

It seems hard to even fathom that anybody would believe this, but the internet has been buzzing with stories alleging that on 15 March Mark Zuckerberg is going to give it all up and shut down Facebook.

The story was first reported by the Weekly World News, which has been in the past responsible for stories like "Alien Spaceships to Attack Earth in 2011", "Megan Fox is a man" and "George Clooney to Run or President".

Actually, I quite like the sound of that Clooney story.

But regardless of the publication's particular bent, it does not take a genius to work out how much of a load of hokey this is. The company has just been given a $50bn valuation, which of course some might also put down as a marvelous piece of fiction.

The Weekly World News has a fabulous "quote" from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who apparently told them "Facebook has gotten out of control. And the stress of managing this company has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness."

The article continued: "'I personally don't think it's a big deal,' he said in a private phone interview. 'And to be honest, I think it's for the better. Without Facebook, people will have to go outside and make real friends. That's always a good thing.'"

Admittedly I wouldn't ordinarily give a story like this the time of day, but it was the reaction on Twitter and Facebook that turned it into something else. And that was probably down to the fact the magazine said that when Facebook cuts the cord on the 15 March, after that date "all photos, notes, links, and videos will be permanently erased".

Now if you are someone who has put a lot of work and effort into developing and maintaining your profile on Facebook, you might just be a wee bit wary. Just in case.

Comments on Twitter showed there were plenty who believed the story, some who were wary and others sneered:

"word on the streets is that march 15 will be the death of Facebook, what will I do !?! - MYSPACE? -_-"

"IS IT TRUE FACEBOOK GONNA SHUT DOWN ON MARCH 15th?..Because if so Death to all the Internet gangsters stalkers and pretenders..lol"

"Facebook Shutdown: Social Death Rumors Ignite!"

But such was the firestorm of comments and questions that even the venerable security company Sophos weighed in on its blog Naked Security.

"Most people would probably never believe such a load of old nonsense as the claim that Mark Zuckerberg is going to shut down Facebook, but it only takes a small proportion of people to think it might be possible to turn a joke of a news story into an internet hoax," wrote Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"And although a hoax is nothing like as bad as a piece of malware worming its away between users and stealing information, it's still a nuisance, clogging up communications, increasing the overall level of spam and perhaps leading people to make decisions for the wrong reasons.

"There's an important lesson here - don't believe everything you read on the internet, and think twice before you pass a story on to your friends."

Okay so you have been warned.

But just in case you are still not convinced, Facebook itself has been forced to address the rumours because of the attention they have been given.

In a statement, the world's social networking company said it is business as usual:

"We didn't get the memo about shutting down, so we'll keep working away like always. We aren't going anywhere; we're just getting started."

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The Superbowl of gadgets has officially opened in Las Vegas and it is not for the faint hearted.

The Consumer Electronics show is a challenge for everyone attending. Day one and your feet are guaranteed to hurt, so is your back and your senses are completely overloaded to the point where you need to lie down in a dark room. By the end of the day it feels like you are trapped inside 100 nightclubs all raging at once.

One thing I will say for CES is the designers of the booths are pure geniuses. High end and full of impact. My photos don't do justice, but here they are for a taster of some of what can be found over the 1.6million square feet of floor space.

Last year 3DTV was all the rage at the show, and despite only selling 1.1 million in the US, they continued this year to take up a lot of floor space. Panasonic made heavy play with their offerings:

LG offered a more modest display, but you still need those infernal glasses:

Toshiba were also showing off a 3DTV but this one didn't need glasses:

Still banging on about 3DTV but this time Sharp is boasting about having the world's largest full HD 3D LED TV:

And back to LG and their massive display of sets just rocked:

OK enough about TV's. Connected cars are also grabbing a lot of attention and ink this week, but this Audi chrome is the P Diddy of them all. It was inspired by the movie Tron Legacy:

Despite the mobility theme, this is one phone that will build the biceps:

In a further homage to the booth designers, I couldn't resist this camera that I spied:

I wish I could say the photo of the abandoned toilet was some existential joke, but it's not. It is meant to suggest that you can find the paper you need from discarded books which have become surplus to requirement because of e-readers:

And finally, bearing no relation to what has gone before, a picture of moi as a piece of "smart art". Well that is what it said on the label:

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The personalised internet radio service Pandora is taking to the road.

Ahead of the opening of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the company has been announcing deal after deal after deal - and the event only officially starts today, Thursday.

So far the big focus for Pandora and its founder Tim Westergren is the news that it is getting into the auto business in a big way.

"Half of all radio listening is in the car. If you want to be a truly anytime, anywhere complete radio solution for someone, you have to have something for the car," Mr Westergren told the BBC.

"In the last couple of years that whole industry has woken up to the potential of personalised content in the car, which is becoming like a big rolling CE (consumer electronic) device. So the opportunity for us to get in there is extraordinary and right now we are chasing that hard."

 

In the last couple of days alone, Pandora has announced significant deals - one is with BMW as part of their connected "infotainment" system for the Mini allowing users to play Pandora on the radio by plugging in their iPhone. Toyota also announced a partnership with the the radio service by including it in its Entune infotainment system.

There were also announcements involving Seagate's GoFlex media player, Pioneer radio units and a number of TV manufacturers.

These partnerships and alliances underscore how the theme of having everything connected to the web is playing big at this year's CES. And the connected car is just one of those big trends. While it is not new, it does have more bells and whistles than in the past with enhanced navigation systems, tools to monitor fuel efficiency, social networking apps, aids to monitor the health of the car, and of course entertainment.

Interestingly Pandora nearly bit the dust a couple of years ago when internet radio services were being asked to pay what it saw as sky-high royalty fees for licensing music. Discord and disharmony ensued and the company said at the time it simply couldn't afford fees and would be driven out of business.

Fast forward to the summer of 2009 and a deal was reached that allowed the music to play on at Pandora and other services like it.

 

Mr Westergren said the licensing restrictions meant he had to block people outside the country using his service.

"The week or two we spent reading emails was one of the most depressing periods of Pandora. To turn off the service to someone who obviously really enjoyed it and really loved it was painful."

Today Pandora boasts over 75 million-plus users and is embedded in over 200 devices from cars to smart-phones and from Blu-ray players to connected TV's.

Next on the cards is world domination. Mr Westergren said he would start small by looking at the UK, China, India and Japan as among the first countries he would like to spread Pandora to beyond the US.

"Our next move will be partly decided by licensing models but being global is an absolute ambition of ours. To have billions of people listening to us all over the world, listening to all kinds of music and having it all connected and redefining radio will be a big cultural change.
 
"Our second goal is near and dear to me as a musician and that is what we could do to actually help musicians. Pandora and internet radio in general has a much broader capacity to include deep catalogues and emerging artists.
 
"We have over 80,000 artists and 70% of them are not with a major label so these are musicians that aren't getting played anywhere else and Pandora offers them this incredible exposure. When we have billions of listeners we could create a kind of musicians' middle class and that is one of our ambitions."

European music service Spotify can probably relate to Pandora's frustrations. While the model is different to that of Pandora's, its ambitions are not dissimilar in wanting to become the de facto way people listen to music.

The service had eyed the end of 2010 for launching in the US and now it seems such plans are on hold indefinitely following reports that the music labels wanted Spotify to pay more than it could afford to license music.

"I feel their pain and I hope they can figure it out," said Mr Westergren.

"They operate a different kind of business which requires direct licensing because they allow on-demand listening. Again I think the future of the music industry in general rests on finding the intersection between the royalties and payments that labels and artists need and deserve and the kinds of business models that will support services that people want. We have to find a mid line in that intersection," added Mr Westergren.

I am hoping to catch up with Spotify at CES later in the week.

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The Consumer Electronics Show is humungous. There are 2,700 exhibitors this year launching 20,000 new products, and displaying them across 1.6 million square feet of space.

 

On offer is everything from connected cars and TV's to tablet computers and smartphones. There are also connected fridges, robots, kids games and technology to give your body and your brain a work-out.

If someone can stick a sensor on it and hook it up to the web, it's most definitely here on display at CES.

The big show doesn't officially get underway until Thursday, but preparations are in full swing with crews working through the night to get everything done in time for the hoards of press and bloggers to descend.

The press-room looked weird, devoid of sweaty bloggers, journalists and the hubbub of news in the making.

Last night I attended an event called CES Unveiled that claims to offer a glimpse of some of the gadgets we may be buying throughout the year. Let me rephrase that - gadgets the makers hope you will fork out for.

It was a mixed bag and all very random. Lots of offerings to power up smartphones, laptops and tablets to storage devices with 64mb of space, paper shredders, scanners and a watch with a camera on it.

The device that ticked myself and my friend from NPR radio off was called SeekerPND by pipSqueak because it was apparently developed to give women time to rummage around their purse to find their phone. The way it works is it actually answers your phone for you and tells the person calling that you will answer shortly and to stay on the line.

Another weird but interesting device looked like a bicycle pump that harnessed kinetic energy when you walked around and used that energy to, say, charge your cellphone.

The nPower PEG's internal battery receives a charge from both plugging it into a USB port and through the energy you generate, whether or not you sling it in your backpack or executive briefcase. The device harvests and stores the kinetic energy that you're already generating and converts it into usable power for recharging over 3,000 hand-held devices such as your cell phone, MP3 player or camera.

One fun project on display was sponsored by computer manufacturer Lenovo. It challenged case moders to rethink the way its devices can be displayed.

 

Dean Liou bought a game cabinet to display a laptop in a way that might appeal to gamers in particular. He called his creation the Arcade Dock.

"My inspiration was taken from the street fighter games that I grew up on," said Mr Liou.

Jeffrey Stephenson went old school. His computer was encased in an expensive shell made up of birds' eye maple and teak.

"I hate computers and the way they look and I wanted to turn it into a piece of furniture that would fit in a living room and not stick out like a sore thumb," said Mr Stephenson.

He has been a case moder for nine years and prefers art deco and mid-century modern for his design aesthetic.

James Fislar is at the other end of the artistic spectrum and going for something a little more modern. He turned his model into a block of ice using resin.

"There aren't too many blocks of ice cases out there and I just thought this would capture the imagination."

It certainly worked where the judges were concerned and Mr Fislar was made the winner ofLenovo's Mod building contest.

Music also made a big play at CES Unveiled with a host of exhibitors displaying digital radios and fancy headphones. The company that got the most attention was House of Marley. And if you are thinking surely not THAT Bob Marley, the answer is yes.

 

The company is run by his 11 children and at the event was son Rohan Marley who said "it was important we were able to create something that not only speaks Marley but represents the music genre as a whole in terms of superiority and quality."

The headphones, boomboxes, iPod docks and the like are made using sustainable and recyclable materials from hemp, leather and plastic.

"Anything you see that says 'Marley' has to represent the earth, charity, giving back and being socially conscious. Our father left us a message, on your way up - take us up. On your way down - don't let me down," said Mr Marley.

Check in with this blog, the Click team and the BBC News website's technology section for more gadget craziness throughout the rest of CES.

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