Comcast announces open cable standards one day early
Comcast Corp. Chairman and CEO Brian L. Roberts is slated to give a keynote speech at CES, and according to an Associated Press story this morning, he's going to be speaking about the "tru2way" initiative.
Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: Formerly known as OpenCable or OCAP, the purpose of the specification is to enable electronics manufacturers to make industry-standard equipment regardless of the cable provider. Such compatibility would also make it easier to develop equipment that can transmit back to the cable network as well as receive from it (hence the '2way' part of the name), which would provide interactive services.
Samsung tries to extend DTV transition onto cell phones
In case music, games, and video weren't enough, vendors are now vying for the opportunity to send digital television signals to your mobile phones.
Samsung is announcing later today updates to its development of Advanced-VSB (A-VSB), which is its standard for mobile digital television. It is an open standard and the company wants to have it complete and available by next February, when the US transitions to all-digital broadcasting.
Broadcom bypasses STBs on the one hand, partners with Microsoft on the other
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: With connectivity between devices being the runaway principal theme of this year's CES, Broadcom is making an intriguing play: Yesterday afternoon, the provider of technologies embedded in devices announced it's producing the components for HDTV manufacturers to embed video-on-demand-ready features directly into their sets, bypassing set-top boxes.
Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: Broadcom Corp. is demonstrating a digital television that hooks up directly to the Internet, eliminating the need for a PC or a set-top box to gain access to video-on-demand, Internet-based TV, and interactive TV services.
Toshiba picks up the pieces of its HD DVD plan
Faced with an embarrassing postponement, if not outright cancellation, of the HD DVD consortium's CES festivities, the champion of the format is going ahead with marketing plans for its "third-generation" consoles.
The timing for Toshiba couldn't have been worse, when one of its key technology partners in the creation of HD DVD -- Warner Bros. -- broke ranks to join the Blu-ray Disc Association last Friday. Faced with no other option, Toshiba played damage control as best it could on Sunday at CES. The president of its US consumer products division, Akiyo Ozaka, told reporters at a briefing this morning that while his company was "disappointed" by Warner's move, citing rising sales numbers since Black Friday, its format "is not dead."
Sony: PS3 ranks swell by 1.2 million since Black Friday
If Sony is to make a comeback this year, it will need to make a huge splash at CES. That's exactly what it has in mind, and helping the company along is some positive news -- for a change -- about its star gaming platform.
In recent weeks, Sony has been working feverishly to convince consumers that its PlayStation 3 console has been on a comeback trail. The problem is, even though sales do appear to have picked up, its two main competitors -- Microsoft's Xbox 360 and the winner-and-still-champion Nintendo Wii -- are also on the rise.
Samsung goes big in '08 with bright ad displays
In the advertising field, Samsung today introduced the SyncMaster 700DXn, a 70" Digital information Display (DID) designed for continuous use as an advertising medium.
For such taxing use, displays need to maintain a lower temperature to ultimately extend the life of the product even after running against high ambient light conditions for over 20 hours a day.
Live running analysis from the Bill Gates keynote
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: It is the annual ritual event that officially marks the end of the holiday season: the Bill Gates keynote at CES. This year, once again there's speculation over whether this will be the Microsoft chairman's last such keynote appearance, similar to the speculation throughout the '70s and '80s over whether this year's Bob Hope Christmas extravaganza would be the final one.
As far as prognostication is concerned, Gates has been a little off the mark in recent years. Last year, you may recall, he demonstrated the wonders of electronic wallpaper which was capable of changing its mood from bright and bold to warm and cozy, for those moments when you ned to tidy your house real quickly before your grandmother drops by. (Literally, that's the analogy he used.)
Panasonic raises the HD wireless connectivity issue
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: The big theme that's developing this year is high-definition connectivity. Essentially, the idea is that there will be many components to each video connoisseur's collection. How will they fit together in such a way that they can be convenient to the consumer and perpetually profitable for the various companies involved?
We asked our Senior CES Analyst, Sharon Fisher, to take a look at Panasonic's first big entry in this field, WirelessHD. Sharon?
Microsoft admits to 'mistakes' in Office format fracas
A Microsoft blog posting from a software engineer apologized for botching up communications around the blocking of old Office, Corel, and Lotus file formats in Office 2003 SP3. Why did anyone think these were security risks?
Responding to reactions from Corel and countless end users, Microsoft apologized late Friday for inaccurately blaming the file formats of other companies for security problems in Microsoft Office. At the same time, it released somewhat simplified tools for accessing files from older Microsoft, Corel, and Lotus applications previously blocked when users installed Office 2003 Service Pack (SP) 3.
Samsung tries a big LCD with a baby monitor attached
Samsung unveiled its SyncMaster 2263DX monitor, a dual-screen display, with one 22-inch LCD display and an additional 7-inch connected monitor on a swiveling, positionable arm to create a multi-screen work environment in a single package.
Optimized with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 in mind, the 7" monitor can be used for unobtrusive web conferencing, or for running instant messaging clients without infringing upon work space.
Samsung goes small in '08 with new UMPC, printers
Samsung has announced it will be releasing an addition to its Q1 Ultra line in 2008.
Packed in a tiny sub-2 pound form factor, the Q1 Ultra Premium PC will have a 1.33 GHz ULV Intel Core Solo U1500 Pentium processor and 1 GB of DDR2 system memory. The device is powered by a 57.7 watt hour Li-Ion 0cell battery with about 7.5 hours of life. It features a split QWERTY keyboard. integrated 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 300 pixel webcam, dual-array mic, 1.3 megapixel camera, 7" wide WSVGA backlit LED 1024x600 monitor with touch screen capabilities.
Vudu opens the gates with high-def streaming movies
The theme of this year's CES could very well be "Leaving the Format War Behind," as already Sunday morning, the emphasis from manufacturers has been centered around device connectivity and streaming service. "HD" is left in, and "blue-laser" is on the sideline...at least thus far.
Monday promises to be "Blu-ray Day," with a flurry of Blu-ray related events to help rub HD DVD's nose in the dirt, after the historic snubbing of HD DVD by Warner Bros. on the weekend.
CES Trend #4: Will the quadruple-play finally cinch the 'last mile?'
What could eventually resolve the value proposition for mainstream consumers to accept an incoming ultra-high-bandwidth pipeline into their homes is the ability of high-definition, on-demand video. But that will require a level of cooperation that competitors thus far have been unable to muster.
"Convergence," used by CE manufacturers to promise solutions the way some political candidates promise "change," has once again become the big problem. The conventional logic is that converging the various communications services -- landline phone, wireless phone, broadband Internet, and HD video -- is the only way to make them both appealing to the consumer from a cost standpoint, and cost-effective to implement from the producers' and manufacturers' vantage point.
HD DVD cancels CES press conference after Warner's snub
In a shocking response to news today that Warner Bros. would make its high-definition movie releases only available on Blu-ray, the HD DVD Promotional Group has canceled its Sunday press conference at CES, and its meetings with the press.
The HD DVD Promotional Group, alongside Toshiba and Microsoft, had planned a cocktail party and press conference to tout the success and improvements in both the HD DVD format and hardware players, which saw heavy sales during the holidays thanks to falling prices.
Corel refutes Microsoft's file format 'insecurity' claims
Are Corel's file formats 'less secure' than those in Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007, as Microsoft told customers in a highly controversial support bulletin? Definitely not, according to Corel officials.
Corel officials today hotly refuted claims by Microsoft that older file formats for CorelDRAW and its Quattro spreadsheet software ever posed security risks when opened within Microsoft Office. But they stopped short of contending that Microsoft is intentionally vilifying either CorelDRAW, an illustration package which Corel sees as complementary to Office, or Quattro, a spreadsheet that's the counterpart of Excel in Corel's WordPerfect Office X3.
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