Real-Time Entertainment Traffic: Have We Entered a Post-PC Era?

  • According to the new “Global Internet Phenomena Report” from broadband solutions provider Sandvine, North Americans have officially embraced the “post-PC” era.
  • The report suggests that for the first time, U.S. consumers are using their gaming consoles, smartphones and tablets more than PCs for entertainment.
  • “[We have] entered a post-PC era, in which the majority of real-time entertainment traffic on North America’s fixed access networks is destined for devices other than a laptop or desktop computer,” Sandvine reports. “Game consoles, settop boxes, smart TVs, tablets, and mobile devices being used within the home combine to receive 55 percent of all real-time entertainment traffic.”
  • Interesting stats from the “Beyond Bytes” infographic: 96 percent of broadband subscribers use real-time entertainment each month, 83 percent of broadband users access YouTube videos each month (compared to 20 percent for Netflix), and real-time entertainment as a percentage of peak period downstream traffic has doubled since 2009.

Kindle Fire May Set Records, but Content Sales Needed to Turn a Profit

  • Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak is predicting record sales of the Kindle and Kindle Fire. However, the company also anticipates a lag in revenue after initial sales of the devices, as consumers get acquainted with their machines before purchasing content for them.
  • “Much of the profit from these products would come from digital purchases by consumers post-sale,” reports The Next Web.
  • “Once a customer has purchased a device, what else do they buy? We certainly have some data now that we didn’t have prior to the launch [of the ad-based Kindles]. Once the customer purchases the Kindle and are carrying around this massive selection at their fingertips, they buy more content,” said Szkutak.
  • In a related Geek.com post, it was noted that the Kindle Fire may become the best-selling Android tablet ever, as pre-orders continue to flood in.
  • Amazon is producing “millions more” tablets to match the demand that has overwhelmed the company since announcing the slate a month ago.
  • The Fire will sell for $199, possibly making it an attractive alternative to Apple’s iPad, which starts at $499.

Should Google and Microsoft Fear the Potential of Siri?

  • Tech analyst Tim Bajarin says both Google and Microsoft have been downplaying the significance of Apple’s Siri because they know it could seriously impact their core search businesses, especially as it gains access to even more online databases.
  • “You shouldn’t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone,” Google mobile chief Andy Rubin told Walt Mossberg at the recent AsiaD conference.
  • Microsoft’s Andy Lees suggested that Siri “isn’t super useful” and added that the voice interactivity of Windows Phone 7 when connected to Bing harnesses “the full power of the Internet, rather than a certain subset.”
  • Bajarin counters that, “Apple has just introduced voice as a major user interface and that its use of voice coupled with AI on a consumer product like the iPhone is going to change the way consumers think about man-machine interfaces in the future.”
  • Siri is not just a voice UI, but a gatekeeper to natural language searching of online databases that may eventually make Apple the third major search company worldwide.

DRM Effectiveness: Is Piracy a Pricing Issue or a Service Issue?

  • Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell has reiterated his take on the issue of piracy. Valve is the creator of game platform Steam that distributes games to a global community of 35 million players.
  • Newell believes that DRM does not work and pirates are not necessarily always seeking free content.
  • “One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” he says. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
  • “Most games available on Steam are easily found in pirated form on the torrent sites,” writes ETCentric contributor Nick Nero. “Even if you buy the game, many users download the torrent because most DRM requires the disc to be present which slows down the game startup and level load/access times.”
  • “What keeps me as a Steam customer is their cloud service,” adds Nick. “I can download any of my games to another PC, I can backup my games to encrypted physical media, my game saves are stored in the cloud, and I can easily find my friends for mulitplayer. The service layer is what brings in the customers.”

App Downloads for Android Sell More than iPhone and iPad Combined

  • App downloads on Google’s Android platform now top iPhone and iPad combined, even in the absence of any competitive Android tablets.
  • The OS accounted for 44 percent of all app downloads for Q2 of this year, according to a recent study by New York-based ABI Research.
  • In the new Steve Jobs’ biography, the Apple founder rails against Android as a “stolen product,” one that he vowed to go to “thermonuclear war” in order to stop its success. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently derided the OS as well, adding you need to be a “computer scientist” to understand Android phones.
  • “But a flood of low-priced handsets this summer has catapulted Android ahead of Apple for the first time in terms of app downloads,” reports the Daily Mail.
  • However, Apple still leads in the per user category. “Android’s app downloads per user still lag behind Apple’s by 2 to 1,” explains Dan Shey at ABI.

Google to Link New Music Download Store with its Social Network

  • Google’s music download store is expected to link with Google+ within the next two weeks. However, the service may prove disappointing if the company cannot secure deals with the four major music labels.
  • Tentatively named Google Music, the service would follow in the footsteps of Spotify, which earlier this fall linked with Facebook to promote its music service.
  • The Google+ integration would allow users to recommend songs to Google+ contacts, who could then listen to those songs once for free. MP3 downloads would then be available, most likely for 99 cents each.
  • Music labels have shown hesitation about the service’s propensity to allow piracy, in addition to the lack of revenue for record companies, as the music locker is free.

Design: Groundbot Spherical Surveillance Robot Delivers 3D Video

  • The Groundbot spherical surveillance robot from Sweden “can roll through mud, sand, snow, or heck, float on water if it need be — while using its pair of cameras to deliver its remote operator with a live live video feed — in stereoscopic 3D, no less,” reports Ubergizmo.
  • This is a great simple design for a device that could be used in many hazardous situations such as combating crime and detecting potential terrorism.
  • The Groundbot can travel up to 6 mph and features knobby tire treads for all-terrain operation. The robot includes sensors for “radioactivity, gas, humidity, fire, heat, smoke, biological material, explosives, or narcotics.”
  • “One controls the Groundbot remotely or through a programmed autonomous GPS-based system, where the Groundbot works like your regular DSLR — you can opt to include a wide-angled camera (for 360-degree vision), or if the situation arises, use a night vision (IR) camera instead.”

NICT Demonstrates Largest Full HD Glasses-Free 3D Display

  • NICT, working with JVC Kenwood, has developed a 200-inch autostereoscopic full HD 3D display (the world’s largest), that shows video from 57 different angles. The unit was presented at CEATEC Japan this month.
  • According to the presentation, “no matter which angle you’re viewing from, you can see a Full High Definition resolution image. With an ordinary display, the viewing range is basically around 180 degrees, but with this one, it’s 13 degrees, which is very narrow.”
  • “To show such a large range of viewing angles, the display uses 57 projectors in an array, with each one specially tuned to create uniform levels of brightness and color balance across all viewpoints,” reports DigInfo TV.
  • ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld comments: “With 57 projectors(!) this is an interesting brute-force approach to autostereo 3D…”

Amazon Trade-In Program Now Accepts Kindles, Non-Amazon E-Readers

  • Amazon announced it has expanded its trade-in program to include the Kindle and other e-readers.
  • A used Kindle is reportedly worth $25 to $135, and the customer will receive an Amazon gift card in exchange.
  • To help encourage trade-ins, the company is also offering free shipping.
  • “With the Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire on the horizon, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many e-reader owners take advantage of this program,” suggests TechCrunch. “Simply visit Amazon’s Trade-In page and enter in the name of your model.”

Apple iPhone 4S Battles Canon 5D Mark II in HD Video Shootout

  • Apple’s new iPhone 4S touts an 8-megapixel camera sensor capable of recording HD video at full 1080p resolution.
  • As an experiment, Robino Films recently posted a video comparing HD video shot with the new iPhone against video from the $2,400 Canon 5D Mark II. The two devices were mounted side-by-side on a camera rig, with similar exposure settings, shooting 1080p video at 30 frames per second.
  • “This test is really only to show that the 4S is coming close to the 5D but in NO WAY is it better,” comments Robino Films. “The iPhone is a great 1080p pocket camera and shows us where technology is heading. Give it two three years and we should see some interesting micro high performance cameras.”
  • ETCentric staffer George Gerba comments: “Add a professional connected app for news production and the white iPhone 4S might be more like a white news van than a phone…”

Canon DSLR: Improved Image Quality and Blazingly Fast Speed

  • Canon’s latest high-end DSLR, the recently announced $6800 EOS-1D X, is expected to ship by March 2012.
  • Features include: 61-point AF system, 1GB Ethernet port, three DIGIC image processors, up to 12 fps RAW shooting, 18-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor.
  • “Images will supposedly be less noisy at extreme ISO settings and the improved processor system will reportedly offer truer colors and more natural contrast, even in low lighting,” reports Digital Trends. “Canon has included continuous Full HD video recording for longer movies sessions (nearly 30 minutes) and new compression files — one in an editing format and another completely compressed file.”
  • The post features a brief video from PetaPixel showcasing “what shooting an 18-megapixel image at 14-frames-per-second looks and sounds like.”

New Report: 40 Million Mobile Users Access Social Networks Daily

  • The number of Americans who use social networks has grown 37 percent over the past year, according to comScore.
  • In August for example, 72.2 million Americans accessed social sites or blogs via mobile devices.
  • “Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile phone users, which accounts for more than half of the mobile social media audience, use social sites while on the go nearly every day,” reports Computerworld. “As a result, mobile devices are an increasingly important part of the burgeoning social media market.”
  • The new comScore study also indicates the number of mobile users who accessed Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn increased by at least 50 percent for each service in the past year.

Integrated Apple TV Rumors: Jobs Biography Adds Fuel to the Fire

  • Steve Jobs had plans for a full-fledged, integrated Apple TV, The Washington Post learned after reviewing the authorized Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.
  • “He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” wrote Isaacson in the book, available today.
  • “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” Jobs told the author. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”
  • Rumors have persisted that Apple might launch a television by the end of next year. Details have not been available, but if it “offered users a la carte programming with integrated Web surfing and access to Apple’s iOS platform, it could upend longstanding industries in telecommunications and entertainment,” suggests The Washington Post.

Lytro Video Update: Light Field Technology Demonstrated at AsiaD

  • Yesterday, ETCentric reported that San Francisco-based start-up Lytro was getting ready to launch a new digital camera that could potentially be “the biggest technological jump since we started talking megapixels over 20 years ago…” (as suggested by All Things D).
  • In a public demo at AsiaD this week with Walt Mossberg, Lytro showed its innovative light field technology and camera that allows you to capture all the light rays of a scene and alter the focus AFTER the picture is taken.
  • The camera, which starts at $399 for the 8GB model, also offers the ability to view a scene in 3D. The Wall Street Journal post includes a compelling 17-minute video of the demo.
  • ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld submitted a related article that provides product and technical details of the consumer market light field camera.
  • “The camera itself is a square prism in shape, around 4.4-inches long and around 1.6-inches square,” reports Digital Photography Review. “Around two thirds of its length is bare anodized aluminum, which houses a 35-280mm equivalent, constant F2 lens. The rest of its length is coated in a soft, light gray rubber, in which you’ll find the camera’s three physical controls — the power switch, a shutter button and a slider that you stroke to zoom the lens in and out. All other interaction with the camera is conducted via the small, 128×128 pixel square touch screen that covers the rear face of the device.”

Digital Light Field Camera set to Launch: Focus After You Take a Picture

  • Digital camera start-up Lytro has unveiled “a consumer digital camera that it claims will be the biggest technological jump since we started talking megapixels over 20 years ago,” reports All Things D.
  • The San Francisco-based company has made waves in the industry with its light field photography concept: “a light field camera captures light all throughout the scene in front of the lens, as opposed to the cameras consumers are used to, which bring a particular thing into focus first.”
  • The result is an image that can be refocused after it is captured, as opposed to standard digital photos, which are focused before being taken.
  • Lytro claims the camera “is faster from power-up to capture, and has exceptional performance in low light, even without a flash.”
  • The camera will ship in early 2012 in 8GB ($399) and 16GB versions.