Video: Why Avatar, 3-D Can Cause Seizures, Epilepsy

February 2, 2010

Beware: 3D will make you go crazy!

Stereo 3D could be the killer app for the entertainment industry, literally!

While Avatar grossed more than $2 billion worldwide, more than any movie ever made, a little known fact – meticulously avoided by the entertainment world at CES 2010 – is that 3D technology could cause seizures for millions of viewers affected by epilepsy, and especially children.

50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, with almost 90% of these people being in developing countries according to this Wikipedia entry; and over 2.5 millions people are affected in the U.S. alone.

The “magic” of 3D can kill

The problem lies in how stereoscopic 3D solutions – showed at CES 2010 – simulate the depth-of-field, using active shutter-glasses with lenses that alternate between clear and opaque, dozen of times per second, and per eye; causing the unintended seizures.

“A large part of the population may suffer from epilepsy. So the fact that your eyes are perceiving something flashy may trigger this hidden problem you have. So it maybe very bad ,” adds 3DSwitch CTO Dario Pennisi whose company develops 3D technologies.

To know more about the danger of 3D for epileptics, check out the authoritative Epilepsy.com site, run by the Epilepsy Therapy Project Forum.

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CES 2010: A Smaller Show

January 5, 2010

Welcome sign at the Las Vegas airport!

Here we meet again, CES, the world’s largest show in consumer electronics land.

I just arrived in sunny Las Vegas before a stop in freezing Salt Lake City. Mark will get there later.

Surprisingly, traffic is quite fluid on Las Vegas boulevard, and there seems to be no waiting at the taxis line!

Good news, as I’ll be just in time to hear the analysts of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) – the organiser of the CES show – on their view of the global consumer electronics industry for 2010 and beyond.

All the events today are held at the Venetian hotel, as well as most press conferences tomorrow. We won’t head to the show at the convention centre until Thursday, Jan 7th, when it actually opens.

However, here are some early statistiques on the show shared by the organisers:

  1. CEA expects 2,500+ exhibitors this year, versus over 2,700 in 2009;
  2. And approximately 110,000 visitors, down a bit from the 113,000 a year ago;
  3. The show is also slightly smaller with 1.4 million square feet, versus 1.7 last year;
  4. But there’s seem to be as many press and analysts, about 5,000!

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Video: Consumers Driving PC Market Growth, Intel says

December 17, 2009

Despite the recession, sales of consumer PCs grew in 2009. A trend expected to continue, at a double digit rate, through 2013

Intel has the consumer to thank for 2009 not being such a bad year after all.

“What we saw was a downdraft, especially on the commercial [PC] sector in 2009. But we actually saw unit volume growth for the consumer [PC] segment. That goes back to our point that PCs are really essential to the way we work and live and that the driver for the business in 2009 has been the consumer segment,” explains Intel vice-president Stephen Smith at a media briefing this morning in San Francisco.

Intel is now shipping in volume 32-nm chips of its Nehalem architecture (Core i3, i5 and i7) to OEMs; from 2 factories and plans to add 2 more next year. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company will show off desktops and laptops using its new Core i3 and i5 chips, as well as netbooks at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next month.

“Looking forward, we see both the commercial and the consumer [segments] growing, with the consumer segment growing at a slightly faster rate in 2010… Again, if you step back 6 months ago, the idea that will would be talking about growth in the [consumer] segment in 2009 – and this is a double digit CAGR going forward – is a mindset people were questioning,” adds Smith.

Follows is a video excerpt of Smith’s pre-CES presentation.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Opinion: Apple Will Not Attend CES 2010

July 30, 2009
CES 2010 will have a dedicated iLounge pavilion for everything Apple

CES 2010 will have a dedicated iLounge pavilion for everything Apple

Update 1: we just received a response from the CEA press office. Although they did not respond to our question about Shapiro’s dinner comments on Apple’s presence, they did confirm that they invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to keynote at CES 2010. More at the end of the post.

Update 2: The WSJ finally changed its story headline from “Will Apple CEO attend CES ’10″ to will he “headline” the event. I guess that says it all?

Depending on who you read – the Wall Street Journal or leading gadget blog Engadget - Apple will, or actually will not attend next year’s largest consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

And we did send an email to CEA, the organisers of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to find out what really was said during this “dinner de cons!”

The organisers of the CES has yet to confirm the comments of its chief Gary Shapiro about Apple presence at the shows 2010 edition

The organisers of CES has yet to confirm the comments of its chief Gary Shapiro (pictured) about Apple's presence at the show's 2010 edition

The controversy: did the WSJ reporter “exaggerate” CES’ chief comments?

According to the respectable business daily, Apple plans to attend the show – which will have a dedicated “iLounge” pavilion for Apple related products – next January “marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there.”

But for Engadget founder Peter Rojas who also attended the media dinner hosted by CEA on Tuesday in San Francisco, CEO Gary Shapiro made it “very clear that Apple would not be exhibiting at CES 2010. In fact, when asked if CEA could make space for them if they did happen to change their minds he said it may be possible to find them a limited amount of floorspace.”

Rojas added in his comments to the Wall Street Journal story that “at no point during the discussion did he [Gary Shapiro] ever indicate that Apple would be participating in any formal way at CES. Nor did he even imply that there was an outside chance that Steve Jobs would keynote, which is suggested by your linkbaiting headline. I’m frankly a little shocked that anyone could have come out of the dinner with a post like this.”

And who cares?

But as Apple explained in it’s reasons to leave MacWorld, “trade shows [like MacWorld or CES] have become a very minor part of how” it reaches its customers.

So my guesstimate, is that Apple – like it did in the past – will simply host smaller launch events, either in its Cupertino campus or in San Francisco and just skip those big venues. And that’s the end of it.

CEA’s response on the “Apple affair”:

Apple is a valued member of the Consumer Electronics Association. As for the 2010 International CES, we have invited Steve Jobs to keynote.  Should he accept our invitation, he would join an outstanding keynote lineup that includes Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Paul Otellini of Intel.  Apple has not signed up to exhibit at the 2010 CES, but there will be more Apple-related products at the show than ever before in our exciting new iLounge Pavilion. The iLoungePavilion is a unified iPod®, iPhone® and Mac® exhibition area, that will be located in South 2 of the LVCC. The exhibit will display manufacturers and retailers of iPod and iPhone applications, along with accessories and other related services and products. The exhibit space has already grown from 4,000 sf to 25,000 sf due to high demand.

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[Analysis] Palm Pre: Hype Precedes Reality, Time Is Running Out

April 30, 2009
Spray and Pray. Thats how I would describe Palms hunt for real reviewers. As Dells Andy Lark pointed out recently, its easy to identify the influencers. Just start Googling!

Spray and Pray. That's how I would describe Palm's hunt for "real reviewers". As Dell's Andy Lark pointed out recently, it's easy to identify the "influencers." Just start Googling!

Pressure is mounting on Palm as it gets closer to launching its new Pre smartphone, rumored to be just a couple weeks away, in mid-May.

For Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar, Palm may be facing much more challenges than it can bear.

Pre faces multiple software and hardware issues

In a report this morning, Kumar writes about multiple hardware and software issues that forced Palm to dramatically reduced its production orders for the Pre; calling Wall Street’s expectation of Palm shipping 1+ million smart phones in 2H09, highly unrealistic.

Palms future depends on the Pres successful launch

Palm's future depends on the success of its Pre smartphone

Pre must sell at or below $199

For Kumar, if Sprint does not match or beat AT&T’s subsidized iPhone price of $199, which translates to a subsidy in excess of $200, the Pre is Dead On Arrival.

According to a virtual teardown done by analyst firm iSuppli, the material cost for the Pre is $170. iSupply expects Palm to charge Sprint $300 for the Pre, which in turn would subsidies the device to reach the iPhone level.

Running out of cash… again!

Kumar said that Palm’s cash burn was about $90 million last quarter, which should increase significantly with higher marketing cost associated with the launch of the Pre platform.

With only $220 million in the bank, time runs out in two quarters, Kumar notes.

But Palm might found a way to reduce its marketing “spend” by recruiting “Real Reviewers” of Palm phones including the Palm Pre. Every reviewer, will receive for free, a current model Palm phone and a data plan for six months. The only requirement is to regularly post about the Palm phone on blogs and social networks.

It’s smart for Palm to try to target “influencers” (journalists, bloggers, soccer Moms…). A strategy that was highly recommended at yesterday’s PRSA event on “PR Secret Strategies For Success” by PR pros from Dell, FICO and Sun. For the bloggers, it’s a double-edge sword: get an early access to the Pre, but risk selling your soul or at least the perception of it.

We already played with the Pre at CES, last January. The keyboard is nice – similar to the Palm Treo Pro – but the rest of the experience (features, applications) will need time to get use to it. We’ll stick with our iPhone, Blackberry and soon Google G1 for now!

Still, no takers, for Palm

Finally, Kumar does not believe that Palm is an attractive take out candidate.

“Their crown jewel is the operating system, but the smart phone industry is migrating away from closed to open platforms. As such PALM is on the wrong side of the fence,” writes the financial analyst.

While I agree that in this distress economy, Palm is an expensive and risky buy – which generally does not go well together – Palm’s WebOS is a much more “open” system than the highly successful iPhone.

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2009: Blu-ray Sales Will Exceed DVD Revenues In U.S. (video)

January 12, 2009
Blue-ray sales will finally take off in 2009

Blue-ray sales will finally take off in 2009

With the end of the high-definition DVD war a year ago at the Consumer Electronics Show – Sony’s Blu-ray standard won over Toshiba’s HD-DVD – Blue-ray sales are poised to take off, said the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

Since first released in June 2006, over 10 million Blu-ray players shipped, and more than 1,100 Blu-ray titles are now available in the U.S. 

For 2009, the CEA expects the sale of Blu-ray players to double at about 10 million units, representing 10% of all DVD players (standard and next generation) sold worldwide.

In the U.S., Blu-ray DVD sales will exceed standard DVD revenues, which is explained by the 5 fold price difference - at least - between the two generations of products.

Here’s a video excerpt from CEA analysts explaining the Blu-ray trend:

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Fastest Growing Gadgets in 2009? OLED Displays!

January 7, 2009

cea-fastest-growing-gadgets-2009At yesterday’s “State of the Industry” presentation, CEA analysts gave their prediction for the fastest growing products in 2009.

Based on estimated shipment revenues, their top picks were OLED displays and e-readers (probably another good year for Amazon’s Kindle!), followed by High-Def Flash-based camcorders (+106%) and netbooks (+80%).

I found awkward to see included “climate systems-communicating thermostats”, wireless MP3 players (iPod Touch maybe?) and Home Theaters in a Box (HTIB) with Blu-Ray. Although Blu-Ray players are going to enjoy a fast growth this year.

The bottom line is that amid a steep recession, the consumer electronics market is going to fare better than most sectors in 2009.

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Plans Announced For Car Radio Able To Play Internet Radio Stations

January 6, 2009

Internet radio company miRoamer has announced a partnership with Blaupunkt to develop car radios capable of receiving and playing Internet radio broadcasts.

The partnership’s first product isn’t expected until at least 2010 and will rely on a user’s 3G cellular account to access the Internet. Future products are planned with internal modems, a company spokesperson said.

The companies say their products will be the first Internet car radios. The partnership is to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.

Products are planned with large display screens

First Internet radio not expected until at least 2010

First Internet radio not expected until at least 2010

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Posted by Mark Boslet

CES 2009 To Draw Less Crowd, Vendors But Is Still World’s Largest Consumer Show

January 5, 2009
techpulse360-ces-schedule

Our schedule at CES is as hectic, if not more than last year's. And we're certainly not the only ones!

As we are preparing our “tour of duty” at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, I’m hearing lots of reports about how the largest consumer technology event in the world will not be… well, so large after all.

GigaOM even reports about the “shrinking” of CES.

Maybe I’m smoking something but looking at our schedule for the show (see picture), it certainly does not look less busier than the previous years.

On the contrary, this year again, getting to the exhibition show floors will be quite an exploit!

Here are a few facts about the show that tells me that our week at CES is going to be a hell of a week:

  • 1.7 million net square feet versus 1.8 million last year;
  • Exhibit area down 6% or 7%;
  • Attendee numbers will not hit last year’s 142 thousand people but still would be over 130 thousand this year as exhibitors are cutting down the number of personnel they are sending.

But as the saying goes, if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger :-)

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Cisco To Launch Consumer Media Entertainment Devices At CES

December 30, 2008
CEO John Chambers will unveil Cisco's consumer strategy at CES

CEO John Chambers will unveil Cisco's consumer strategy at CES

Cisco Systems is about to launch a digital media player at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

According to Bloomberg News, Cisco’s media player – the first of a new line of products aimed at consumers’ living rooms – will that lets users access their digital songs and photos from an iPod plugged into the device or wirelessly on computers around the home.

To make a dent in the very competitive consumer retail market, the San Jose, Calif. company relies on its expertise in set-top-boxes (through its acquisition of Scientific Atlanta), home routers (Linksys) and network device management software (Pure Networks).

In his CES keynote, Cisco CEO John Chambers is expected to detail the company’s overall consumer strategy and unveil the new consumer line of networked devices that could also include a consumer video conferencing system.

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