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- Watching TV In Digital Home: TV sets in Microsoft's Concept Home can access all media, movies, music, info on home network (28MAR04) (WashPost)
In touring the Microsoft Concept Home, the Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro reports, "The family room's plasma TV -- like other sets in the house -- is a monitor that allows access to all the entertainment and information on the home network, including movies, music, photos and everybody's schedules, collected from such different sources as the computer servers at the parents' workplaces and a kid's Hotmail calendar." - Online Video Commercials: MSN Messenger launches 'Flashtalking' video streaming video advertising (29MAR04) (Mediapost)
Mediapost reports, "The ads use Flashtalking video streaming to play instantly as MSN Messenger Today is opened." - Video Sharing: Online Publishers Association finds 25% of 18-to-34-year-old online users send or share video via the web (29MAR04) (Mediapost)
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In citing a study by the Online Publishers Association, conducted in conjunction with comScore Networks, that looks at the online habits of 18-to-34-year-olds, Mediapost reports, "25 percent of [18-to-34-year-olds] sends or shares video via the Web...." In the related news item about the report, iMedia Connections also similarly reports "... 18- to 34-year-olds are more likely to engage in downloading, sharing and burning music and videos online and are more avid consumers of online video content than any other age group." - TV Interaction Via Texting: 'American Idol' TV show helps boost creation of text-messaging generation with text voting (29MAR04) (iMedia)
iMedia Connection reports, "In addition to crowning new pop stars, FOX Network's 'American Idol' also contributed to the creation of the text-messaging generation.... In this, the show's third season, viewers know how and when to text-message their votes. But last year, when Clay Aiken and Reuben Studdard faced off, the concept was fairly new. So as viewers voted for their favorite crooners, they increased their interest in text messaging." - Flat Screen LCDs For TVs: IDC predicts demand for LCD screens for TVs to nearly double to $42 billion by 2007 (28MAR04) (Yahoo.Reuters)
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Reuters reports, "The display industry is set to boom as LCD TVs, which now cost thousands of dollars each, come down in price with the introduction of major production capacity, mostly in South Korea and Taiwan, in the next two years." Reuters also reports, "The upgrade from traditional cathode-ray boxes is expected to be the biggest change in TV technology since the switch from black and white." - TV Commercials: Bill Gates says ad execs need to find how to get commercials to people who watch TV how & when they want (26MAR04) (Eweek.AP)
The Associated Press (AP) cites Microsoft's Bill Gates as indicating, "It's time to stop taking TV addicts for granted.... For years, advertisers depended on the prototypical couch potato who sat through commercials while waiting for the next television show to arrive on the screen." AP goes on to cite Gates as indicating, "Now, ... advertising executives need to prepare for a world in which people will watch TV how and when they want to—and advertisers will need to figure out how to get commercials to them anyway.... [N]ew technology will create better possibilities for targeting advertisements to certain demographics, such as by age, geography or gender." - Converging PC & CE Devices: IDC telebriefing to cover '7 C's of PC/CE Convergence' on April 1, 12:00-1:00 pm EST (28MAR04) (IDC)
The IDC telebriefing synopsis page states, "The worlds of personal computers and consumer electronics devices have been on a collision course for many years, but previous predictions of their impending merger have never come to fruition. Now, however, as the vision of the digital home of the future comes into sharper focus, it's clear that there are opportunities for both CE and PC vendors in this new converged world." - PC-TV In The Living Room: Dell flat-panel televisions are intended to persuade people to move PCs to living rooms (26MAR04) (CNET.Reuters) (alt.link)
Reuters quotes Dell CEO Michael Dell as stating, "We see the role of the PC expanding quite a bit in the digital home as more content becomes digital, whether it's video, pictures or music. People are looking for the PC to be at the center of this experience, so larger displays are quite attractive." - Netherlands VOD Via Net: Dutch public TV Omroep.nl to provide media player to allow on-demand internet access to TV shows (23MAR04) (DMeurope)
DMeurope reports, "Omroep.nl, the website representing Dutch public broadcasters, is to launch a new media player that allows [member broadcasters'] television programmes to be offered directly through portal websites and those of content providers." - Downloading Movies: Eliot Van Buskirk is waiting for Netflix to begin predicted movie download service (26MAR04) (ZDNet)
ZDNet's Eliot Van Buskirk writes if Netflix is to continue to grow, then "digital movie downloads must become part of the equation. You'll still get to keep any three or so films at a time, but perhaps the monthly fee will be lower. After all, downloads don't require postage, and the company's servers will automatically sort the 'returned' flicks." Buskirk goes on to write, "When people vote PVPs into the mainstream with their wallets, Netflix will clearly have to defend its market share from digital-download upstarts such as CinemaNow, which already offers movies in the Windows Media Video (WMV) format." - Oscar 'Screener' Downloads: Man admits making & distributing copies of movies online but denies he knew he was violating law (24MAR04) (LATimes)
The Los Angeles Times reports, "Appearing before Judge George H. King, [Russell W.] Sprague admitted that he had made and redistributed more than 10 illegal copies. But Sprague balked at admitting that he knew he was violating the law, prompting King to postpone any further proceedings until April 12." - California State Senator wants to require file sharers to identify themselves when illegally posting copies of movies, software (17MAR04) (LATimes)
The Los Angeles Times reports California state senator Kevin Murray "is pushing a bill that would require California file sharers to attach their real names and addresses to the copyrighted goodies they let others download over networks like Kazaa and Morpheus." Otherwise, "[i]f they don't, ... they should be jailed for up to a year and fined as much as $2,500." The point of the proposed state legislation "is to give state prosecutors, who have no jurisdiction over copyright infringement, a charge they can bring against online pirates." - Digital Piracy & Illegal Movie Downloading: US seeks extradiction of 'warez' group member from Australia (26MAR04) (CNET)
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CNET reports, "According to the indictment, filed by U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty, [Hew Raymond Griffiths, a 42-year-old computer programmer who lives in New South Wales, Australia] helped oversee DrinkOrDie [warez group] operations that resulted in the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted software, games, music and movies worth more than $50 million. The group was founded in Russia in 1993, the legal documents alleged, but was run by computer hackers worldwide." In a related news item from Feb. 27, 2002, CNET cites Motion Picture Association of America CEO Jack Valenti as indicating "the MPAA has seen a 45 percent decrease in the number of sites offering pirated movies since law enforcement began a crackdown on DrinkOrDie last December [2001]." - Going After Illegal Movie Download Groups: Investigating illegal movie 'warez' ripping distribution groups on the web (07JAN04) (LATimes)
The Los Angeles Times reports, "Regardless of whether there's [no] money involved, what the ripping groups do violates copyright law. Federal agents recently mounted three sweeps of online piracy groups that netted at least 46 guilty pleas and 19 prison sentences. Those nabbed range from a 40-year-old Australian to a 20-year-old student at Duke University. More investigations are underway." - Answer To Video Piracy: Designing technology to not facilitate theft nor illegal online distribution of video (23JAN04) (Forbes.McKinsey)
McKinsey Quarterly reports, "Broadband providers, for their part, must help to enforce copyright laws on their networks by shutting down hubs of piracy -- not to wipe out file sharing but to boot off the big offenders who trade the lion's share of pirated content.... As for the hardware manufacturers, they can improve their position by agreeing to make their devices less friendly to theft.... Much as early makers of videocassette recorders learned to stop building machines with two slots for the easy copying of tapes, hardware manufacturers should ask themselves as they design a product whether it will facilitate theft." - Developing iTV: OpenTV to offer Emuse iTV authoring tool Modelstream to members of OpenTV Partner Program (26MAR04) (Netimperative)
Netimperative reports, "... OpenTV will offer members of its OpenTV Partner Program, a software development bundle that includes emuse's iTV authoring tool Modelstream." - PS2 In 2010: Sony Playstation 2 life cycle expected to be at least 10 years long (25MAR04) (WashPost.Reuters)
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In discussing the potential 10-year life cycle of the Sony Playstation 2 and the "advancing age of the people who own and buy the hardware", Reuters quotes Sony Computer Entertainment of America's executive vice president Andrew House as stating, "We have to think very carefully about the type of audience we're reaching with our games." - Seamless Connectivity In The Home: Receptive audience to be found for PC-TV when there is seamless connectivity to digital content (25MAR04) (Parks)
The news announcement quotes Parks Associates vice president & principal analyst Kurt Scherf as stating, "For some time, the promise of a multimedia-enabled 'next-generation' home computer has been tempered by low consumer demand, the dearth of compelling applications, and less-than-seamless hardware and software. However, we are optimistic given the release of new products such as digital media adapters and receivers that extend the entertainment reach of the home computer to other parts of the home. We also anticipate a good uptake for video imaging tools and software, external and network-attached storage, and larger and slimmer computer monitors, all of which will create a more seamless and valuable entertainment experience for consumers." - Repurposing Digital Content: Emerging technologies allow consumers to mix TV, DVD for video creativity & possibly mischief (25MAR04) (WashPost)
The Washington Post's Leslie Walker reports, "It is easy for me to envision all kinds of nefarious video hoaxes roiling politics and Hollywood, especially since lately I've also been testing a Gateway computer running Microsoft Corp.'s Media Center Edition operating system.... [which allows] you to record TV shows to the computer's hard drive with the click of a remote control... My experiments have convinced me it is only a matter of time before millions of consumers will be doing things like creating custom concert videos of their favorite artists. They'll mix and match video from TV shows and DVD recordings which they (hopefully) will have acquired legally...." - Content Choices: Jim Meskauskas says internet, DVRs & abundance of content choices doesn't leave us in state of more control (25MAR04) (Mediapost)
Mediapost's Jim Meskauskas, who is picking his new DVR next week, writes, "[T]he internet, DVRs ... and the modern media landscape I once heard aptly termed 'an embarrassment of niches' by Andrew Heyward, the president of CBS News, has done much to leave us in a strange and almost schizophrenic altered state.... Is the future of marketing control of content? Do the internet, DVRs, and the abundance of content choices really leave us in a state of more control than media consumers once were?" Meskauskas "would argue no." - Renting DVDs Via Online Dial-Up: Video Island in UK sends video-on-demand via postal mail since not everyone has broadband (25MAR04) (Guardian)
The Guardian reports the Video Island "video-on-demand service is the product of some elegant lateral thinking: who says it has to be delivered using the internet? Why not simply send out movies in the post?" - Online Videogames Can Be Played Offline: NPD Group finds online-capable videogames exceed $1billion in US retail sales in 2003 (24MAR04) (Mercury)
Mercury News reports, "The numbers are misleading in one sense. Many gamers buy online-capable games such as 'Madden NFL 2004' but often they don't bother to play them online. Rather, they just play them as normal console games." - Developing Videogames: Microsoft intros XNA videogame development platform for Xbox and WinXP PC videogames (24MAR04) (CNET)
CNET cites Microsoft vice president J. Allard as indicating, "XNA tools will help in the creation of games for the current Windows XP operating system for PCs and the current Xbox ... and will be extended in the next version of the Xbox and Longhorn, the successor to Windows XP." - iSuppli/Stanford Resources says 1.3 million LCD TVs shipped for 23% increase, 358,449 plasma TV shipped for 5% increase in 4Q 2003 (25MAR04) (CNET)
CNET cites iSuppli/Stanford as indicating, "The flat-panel TV market -- made up of LCD and plasma televisions -- will continue to grow in the first quarter [of 2004] because of increased availability, declining prices and consumer interest...."
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