Excellent report on the IFA-Berlin 2005 Consumer Electronics show.
October 13, 2005
Tim O’Keefe of Digital Business Consulting has done an excellent report of his trip to the IFA-Berlin 2005 Consumer Electronics Fair (Sep-05).
Some of the points from the executive summary of his report, show the trend toward the "HD Era" is well and truly upon us.
- The major European suppliers and pay-TV providers now see HDTV as the
‘killer application’ for digital TV, and the 2006 Soccer World Cup in
Germany (which will be shot and broadcast in HD in Europe) to be the key
driver. - A ‘HD-ready’ marketing code has been developed which can be applied to
16:9 screens with a minimum 720p panel resolution and capable of displaying
720p and 1080i video. - Portable DVB-T digital TV receivers, with excellent screen quality for
outdoor reception, and hand-held receivers (for phones and PDAs) utilizing
DVB-H and DMB technologies have emerged. - The biggest screens are reaching sizes of 102 inches for plasma, 82 inches for
LCD and 71 inches for DLP projectors. - Everything is going widescreen – even digital still cameras!
For the report & other Australian digital TV goodness head over to the Digital Broadcasting Australia website
Direct link to PDF report here
http://www.dba.org.au/uploads/documents/IFAReport2005.pdf
http://www.dba.org.au/uploads/documents/IFAReport2005.pdf
Video call from the Pyramids anyone?
October 12, 2005
Egypt is going 3G!
Now wouldn’t that be an amazing video call, on top of one of the great Pyramids to here in Sydney!
Egypt is set to launch a tender for a third national mobile licence later this month. A senior advisor to the government’s Communications and Information Technology Minister, was quoted by Reuters this morning as saying that the sale of the government owned, fixed line operator Telecom Egypt is also on schedule to go ahead this year.
……. of course my dream will be shattered by some bozo archealogist who will patition that the 3G cellular towers should not be installed anywhere near the Pyramids……<sigh>
The Battle of the DVD evolution
October 8, 2005
The battle lines have been redrawn between the major players in the evolution of DVD technology.
The Blu-ray Disc Association & Toshiba’s HD-DVD marketing armies are at it again to bid for world supremacy with their formats. This has mainly taken the form of announcements on who is backing which technology.
DVDTown has a good summary of what’s been happening with this industry so far here http://www.hddvd.org/hddvd/.
These formats come at a huge licensing cost to manufacturers and it looks like China’s not taking this lightly. This article http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1191861 outlines how China is once again driving it’s independent next generation DVD format, Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD).
China is way to big a market to ignore, so manufacturers may be forced to produce hybrid devices (supporting multiple formats) that cater for this market.
DreamWorks – The 64 Second Film Content
October 5, 2005
Just read in the Digitalmediawire.com newsletter that DreamWorks has a great contest on at the moment to create a 64 second film
some blurb from the site……..
Film Fanatics, Digital Hipsters, Mixmasters, Photophiles and Movie-moguls-in-the-making. A 64-second film on the subject of "weightlessness" will land one of you at DreamWorks™. Don’t wait to create.
Entries in will be accepted October 10 – November 27, 2005.
Peter Jackson to produce Halo the movie
October 5, 2005
Great news for all us XBOX fans in that Peter Jackson, of "Lord of The Rings" & "King Kong" fame, has signed up to produce XBOX game Halo as a movie. Filming will be in New Zealand to take advantage of Jackson’s massive production & post production facilities located there.
Movie is planned for release in 2007.
Lost in translation!?!?!
October 2, 2005
I received this USB camera as a gift for a magazine subscription. I’ve never really read the front of the box completely until tonight.
Pictures speak louder than words…. 
The joy of spare time on your hands
September 30, 2005
I’ve been enjoying some time off and I finally got around to some small projects I wanted to finish around the house 
Part 2 is adding the roof!
Open Gardens
September 23, 2005
I was at an AIMIA Trivia night tonight and Jerry Argyriou of Nielsen Netratings gave me a quick look at this book called "Open Gardens".
This book goes into a lot of detail into how carriers can use a new development model for working with 3rd parties to create a thriving partner driven ecosystem.
I call it the Network Development Platform and these guys are spot on. The unfortunate part is that getting the carriers to recognise this is like hitting a dinosaur on the tail with a stick and then waiting an eternity for the head of the beast to come around to see what the fuss is all about. I should know as I experienced this first hand.
3G was meant to be a convergence of IT and telco, but there is still some archaic and arthritic mentality that is is killing innovation in Australia.
Highly recommend putting an order in for one.
Toshiba Pocket Projector for 3G devices
September 19, 2005
In the early days of 3G services here in Australia, I remember that one of the most asked questions about the devices was can you get it to hook up to a projector for presentations.
Well it’s taken a couple of years but Toshiba has unveiled a 3G Phone Pocket Projector at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) 2005 in Berlin, with the company stating the projector can be used to connect to 3G multimedia handsets.
The Toshiba Pocket Projector is the size of a pen, but comes at the cost of a high end 3G device around 999 euros.
The device will be available in Europe near the end of this year
IPTV intro
September 15, 2005
IPTV used to be the way of the future, but now it’s just around the corner. In fact many would argue that parts exist today on the Internet.
The great aspect of IPTV is that it will take many forms. Don’t think of IPTV as just being a set-top-box on your existing TV. IPTV is true convergence. The technologies implemented around this delivery platform will enable many different services such as Mobile TV, public interactive advertising (think Minority Report movie here), interactive info/entertainemnt booths in cabs, train stations etc and of course the set-top-box.
Universal Convergence 