March 18, 2008
Recent Apple patents showing a flip-design iPhone and a DVR that might be able to exchange guide data with an iPhone (as well as give talk show hosts really bad haircuts) remind us that, while Apple has shared technology (operating systems, video and graphics support, iTunes support) among its entrants in each of the “three-screen” products — Mac, iPhone/iPod, and Apple TV, there really hasn’t been that much active collaboration among them at this point outside of being able to start a TV show or movie on one device and finish it on another (a cool feature, to be sure).
It’s fine for Apple to move slowly here. Consumers don’t buy “synergy”, they buy products. But just as I’ve credited the Apple store with providing an environment for letting consumers experience the iPod and expose the iPhone (particularly during the holiday season), Apple’s retail presence could make some of these difficult home networking concepts more palatable. The living room is definitely the weakest link and while the DVR market has been an extremely tough not to crack, Apple TV remains Apple’s weakest link in the chain.
Tags: Apple TV, DVR, iPhoneMarch 3, 2008
Could Toshiba become the most progressive consumer electronics company when it comes to digital distribution?
As I and others have noted, HD DVD was never the primary factor in slowing the adoption of Blu-ray. According to NPD’s research, satisfaction with existing DVD players was the most cited reason among those who had no plans to purchase a high-definition disc player when we surveyed consumers last year. Therefore, the end of HD DVD has not meant a free pass for Blu-ray.
In an interview with the WSJ, Toshiba’s Atsutoshi Nishida points out the value of a diversified corporate portfolio, noting that HD DVD was but one of 45 strategic product groups within the electronics conglomerate. He also divulges plans to stay or become relevant in the twin forces squeezing Blu-ray from the past (upconverting DVDs) and the future (digital downloads) to continue to compete indirectly with Blu-ray. Nishida points to wired technologies that are becoming wireless (a reference to HDMI?).
Of course, Toshiba’s PC strength to which Nishida refers is in notebooks, and most of the connectivity scenarios he discusses have been focused on stationery PCs (although that is changing). In any case, it seems clear that Toshiba will have more occasion to work closely with its HD DVD promotion partner Microsoft. The conspiracy theorists may have been wrong, but the format war has brought at least one major electronics company to look beyond the disc.
Tags: Blu-ray, digital distribution, HD-DVD, ToshibaFebruary 24, 2008
In speaking with several reporters about the victory, I noted NPD’s research last year that found satisfaction with existing DVD players to be a more common reason for abstaining from the high-definition disc market than the format war with HD-DVD. As digital media gadfly and PR veteran par excellence Andy Marken notes, “The difference is now the BD folks won’t be able to blame Toshiba for holding back the success of high def disc sales.”
Blu-ray was the second must-win AV standards war after LCD vs. plasma that the company has won in the past few years by leveraging selective specification superiority — curious for the consumer electronics company that is so frequently identified with being a lifestyle brand. Blu-ray’s main technical difference vs. HD-DVD was that it offered 50 GB per disc as opposed to 30 GB.
Sony and the BDA didn’t make the capacity argument directly to consumers as much to the trade media, particularly before studio support became more relevant. However, Sony was the first company to proselytize 1080p or “full HD” to consumers, which has helped to give large-screen LCD the upper hand.
Further momentum behind BD can only help promote 1080p TVs (not that they seem to need much help). It will also be very interesting to see how much the standardization of Blu-ray now helps sell the PS3 after the PS3 was kind enough to do the same for Blu-ray since 2006. Sony’s content holdings may not have been enough to overcome the challenges of UMD as a movie format, but the virtually guaranteed support of Blu-ray by Sony Pictures was a validation of Sony’s integration of hardware and content. Of course, the equal loyalty of Disney and Fox was critical as well.
Tags: 1080p, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, PS3, SonyJanuary 31, 2008
If you were wondering why Steve Jobs sneaked in some enhancements to the iPhone’s location capabilities in advance of the February SDK unveiling, tonight may have provided a clue. In advance of its official release at GSMA Mobile World Congress (and the first shipments of the Dash Express), Garmin unveiled its Nuviphone, which combines communication, navigation and some basic MP3 playback features — Industrial design inspiration courtesy you-know-who. Wilson Rothman has captured my pointing out the name’s similarity to a certain popular interactive voice response system.
Garmin isn’t releasing specifications or a features list given that the device won’t ship until the third quarter. On the data front, though, the Nuviphone will support at least POP and IMAP email and Web browsing. It also takes digital stills an video and — here’s the slick part — geotags them so you can send a photo to another Nuviphone, after which that recipient can be directed to where the photo was taken. The Nuviphone has a 3.5″ screen but a wider aspect ratio than the iPhone.
As for other comparisons, it’s not a smartphone in that it does not have an open OS. Garmin says that developing an SDK is technically possible but not something the company is pursuing. (I think it should.) And I also don’t expect the Internet or media features to set a new bar.
Tags: Garmin, GPS, iPhone, killer, NuviphoneApril 6, 2007
This week’s Switched On, which should be posted later today, discusses HP’s discontinuation of its Digital Entertainment Center living room form factor PCs and Microsoft’s struggles to advance PC form factors. As far as I know, CEPro broke the story. Those who follow the convergence or PC retail space should read Julie Jacobson’s excellent series of articles about HP’s experience with the DEC in the custom installer channel. Part II looks at HP’s experience with the custom install channel earlier in the article, but the third part of the article, which I believe was posted today, delves deeper into why HP is leaning toward its MediaSmart TVs.
I akso had to chuckle as Julie found this way to sidestep an “off the record” comment:
Although HP spokesperson Pat Kinley did not want me to quote her as saying that the HP product and interface is simpler to use than the MCE solution, PC World did quote her: “We have other products on the market now and future products that I can’t talk about that perform essentially the same function in a way that’s easier for the consumer [to use].”
The article concludes with HP trying to position more as competition for AppleTV vs. Media Center Extenders, but you can’t compete with one without competing against the other, as Microsoft has been driving home with its comparisons between the Xbox 360 and AppleTV. In any case, building well-implemented DMR capabilities into the TV is a good differentiator for now, and most consumers would likely prefer no external box to even a small one like AppleTV, but with Pioneer, Sharp and surely others to follow, how long will it be before this falls too far below the consumer purchase criteria list to matter?
March 10, 2007
I’m delighted to see that my college friend, fellow former Cornell Daily Sun columnist, author and economics commentator Daniel Gross is. (I’ve been, too.) Dan runs some numbers in Slate and determines that the market for functional wristwear is on the decline. Indeed, the humble watch is often overlooked when thinking about competition among portable multifunction gadgets, especially cell phones, that have more glamorous cannibalistic features such as playing digital music and games, taking video and even GPS capabilities.
Dan focuses attention on Fossil, in particular its now somewhat ironically named Relic brand of basic timepieces. Dan provides a strong case that — unlike with digital cameras, iPods or DS Lites – cell phones and their tethered digital rivals may indeed be cleaning the clock of watches.
February 23, 2007
In enumerating his latest ideal features for a podcast player, Dave Winer illustrates a dilemma that convergence poses. Dave wants Blackberry-like synchronization, which I agree would be a nice feature, but one that would probably translate into carrier support and distribution. It would be a tough sell to get carriers to offer such a product as it would be deemed too niche. This is partly why cheaper. more accessible wireless broadband, via WiMax or some other source, can’t come soon enough to reinvigorate the consumer electronics market.
Dave also wants the product to be a platform of sorts. I’d support plug-in functionality, but would oppose making the thing completely open as Mike Elgan has argued the Zune should be. As Michael Gartenberg notes before tempting me to buy niche coffee-making products, there are already several multifunction products that could easily meet Dave’s requirements, yet they are not considered for the task because of their loosely defined functionality.
January 5, 2007
The media center capabilities of Windows Vista included in Vista Home Premium and Windows Ultimate represent a step-up in high-definition optimization. If Microsoft can live up to its claims of improved system stability, it should improve the appeal of PCs in the living room. However, CableCARD integration is not even necessary for its main competitors — inexpensive (at least to acquire) cable and satellite TV set-top boxes.
Microsoft has thus far focused on content integration, UI quality, consistency and responsiveness, and appeal to a digital generation used to managing content via PCs. However, Microsoft would really give its media center capabilities a boost in the arm if they could provide functionality that overshadows the now commodified DVR that has been its centerpiece.
It’s now offering a TV-based user interface to Windows Live (above) that includes support for voice and text chats and VoIP calls using Verizon Web Calling. But the navigation of Spaces shown above, while certainly visual, seems designed to terrorize the agoraphobic. It reminds me of the intimidating layout of the Grand Convocation Chamber in the Star Wars prequels (left).
From PVRWire
October 26, 2006
I just moderated my panel at Digital Hollywood on entertainment in the digital home and was struck by how different the tenor of the mood was than on the panel with the same title that I moderated a few months ago at Building Blocks in San Jose. Whereas that event was starry-eyed over the promise of 802.11n — an optimism that carried through to DigitalLife — at least one panelist today asserted that consumers will not create home networks to move media around the home. There was also discussion of the pain vs. the gain of home networking and the level of technical knowledge stil required.
This led me to pose to the panel what the need is for the networked home, the future of which we often take for granted. If service providers can get you all the video and music you need, the missing link is only your own content. And many consumers would be satisfied with a simple wireless link from their digital cameras for that. This all runs counter to the conventional wisdom that photos — without any DRM — are the “easy” stuff, and music and Hollywood video content is the “hard” stuff.
After my panel, I caught up with a charming friend and former colleague who wondered aloud whether we have finally reached “convergence” as defined as a marriage of the PC and television (not the definition I’m using these days, incidentally). For the most part, I think we have. Certainly from a hardware perspective, devices such as TiVo, HD-DVD players and advanced set-top boxes are essentially PCs inside. We’re also seeing TV shows streamed or sold to the PC. Television programming itself has not become interactive (yet), but modern-day EPG and input-switching interfaces — to say nothing of network interfaces such as those in HP’s MediaSmart televisions — exemplify computing.
August 11, 2006
CEA today announced that it’s formed an advisory group to look into a “gaming and entertainment event” in the spring of 2007, making no bones about its desire to again serve as the focal point for the games industry. For all the success of CES, E3 is “the one that got away”; its split in 1994 left a wound in CEA’s side that’s never healed.
If the big videogame companies pulled out of E3, why would they join a trade show of similar scale hosted by CEA? For one thing, E3 has always had more of a circus environment than CES; the industry has grown up. Also, CES attracts more mainstream media, which is important for expanding the videogame space beyond the fanboy blogs. And while the Xbox and PlayStation groups are their own entities within Microsoft and Sony, both corporations are CES exhibitors as are Intel, nVidia and ATI, er, AMD.
On the other hand, while CEA has long been adept at making overtures to content companies, they haven’t quite cracked that nut to the extent necessary to create a true alternative to E3, where most of the large booths were from software publishers such as Sega, Activision, Atari, EA, Namco, Konami, Square Enix and NCSoft.
