Industry Archives - Page 91 of 145

Why the Verizon Hub Just Might Work

In the CE world, success is all about timing. Verizon debuted its Verizon One gadget years ago, but that was before the widget craze, before FiOS was a household word, and before streaming radio and digital photo frames raised the profile of non-computer, Internet-connected devices.

In its latest form, the Verizon One is now called the Verizon Hub, and Dave and I got a chance to see it during our recent visit to Verizon HQ. I love this thing. In brief, it’s a cordless-phone-plus-widget-station that lets you make calls, get news, weather and traffic, share photos and control your FiOS TV (Motorola) set-tops. There are plenty of things it doesn’t do, like let you surf the Web, but that’s what your computer is for. And with the Verizon Hub you won’t get distracted by all of the unread emails in your inbox when you just want to check traffic.

The Verizon Hub has a gorgeous display, a POTS connection (no VoIP), Wi-Fi and an Ethernet port. I’m drooling over the device, but ultimately I think its success will depend on cost. This is a whole new gadget category and it will take a reasonable price point to get the unwashed masses to try it out. That said, if there was ever a time when the Verizon Hub could be successful, it’s now. Lots of people use widgets and RSS feeds, and lots of people like to show off photo slideshows. This isn’t a complete paradigm shift anymore. — More pics after the jump.

Three Days Till the End of Internet Radio?

With three days to go before the Copyright Royalty Board’s new royalty scheme goes into effect and essentially kills off Internet radio, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has denied a motion to postpone the deadline. Maybe this is a good thing because it will force Congressional action, but it also leaves … Read more

Why Go HD?

HDTV is booming, but not for the reasons you might expect. Apparently Americans aren’t getting high-def sets primarily to watch TV, but for gaming and screening DVDs. In fact, a recent CEA study found that only 44 percent of HDTV owners subscribe to HD programming from a cable or satellite TV provider. Of course that … Read more

Where the Holidays Start in July

It’s that time of year again. We’re more than halfway to the holiday shopping season and CES 2008, which means CE companies are starting to panic about what they can get on to store shelves or at least out of production in time to take advantage of the year’s biggest buying season and biggest PR event respectively. Without doing any in-depth research yet, here’s my list of what we might see around Black Friday time:

Retail Moxi DVR – Dave’s already covered this extensively, and I can’t wait to see how Digeo brings its two models to market. What are the price points? Who will sell them? Has Digeo had any problems with CableCARD certification?

Touchscreen iPod/Nano iPhone – The rumor is some iPod/Nano mash-up will come out later this year. I don’t think it will make my X’mas wish list. A touchscreen on a device smaller than the existing iPhone? I’d need tinier thumbs.

Straight to Download

Last100 spotted this Hollywood Reporter story over the holiday detailing MGM’s venture into straight-to-download movies. On Tuesday, MGM debuted “A Dog’s Breakfast” on iTunes and Amazon Unbox. The flick is directed by and stars “Stargate Atlantis” actors and is being hyped on YouTube. The key here is that the movie has a built-in audience of … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Widgets are Walled Gardens: Connected Home 2 Go Seven-Oh-Seven Comes and Goes: Connected Home 2 Go Verizon Dodges CableCARD Deadline: Connected Home 2 Go Top 10 Apple iPhone interface mistakes: Rakesh Agrawal

On-Demand DVDs

While some of us just can’t resist endless iPhone coverage :), there are a few other things in the CE world to keep an eye on. Among them, the DVD Copy Control Association has very quietly approved CSS copy-protection technology for use in movie download services and DVD kiosks. What does this mean? It means that companies can start offering on-demand DVD burning of the movies you buy. Instead of figuring out how to transcode video for a portable media player or how to stream downloaded flicks from a PC to a TV, now you can transport media the old-fashioned way. Just take it with you on a good old DVD.

The one major downside? If you’re consumer at home (i.e. not buying from a kiosk), you’ll need a new DVD burner and a new type of DVD-R disc to burn downloaded movies.

In the endless quest to move media around, we’ve come up with a couple of “alternative” solutions in our household.

A Few More Thoughts On iPhone

Not only did I snap a line in NYC yesterday, I managed to make it home to DC before 6PM and on my walk home caught a few dozen people (above) lined up outside another AT&T store.

Surprisingly, I encountered the only American unaware of and unimpressed with this historical milestone. The teenager saw my camera and news crew across the street – and our conversation went something like this: “What happened?” “iPhone!” “Oh, that comes out today?” “6PM!” “Oh, hm.”

Later in the evening I headed back out to AT&T. They had sold their stock (a number they wouldn’t reveal) in under an hour and the store was pretty quiet… I only waited about 5 minutes for my turn on the iPhone.