The GSMA released research this week that outlines the market opportunity and revenue potential for connected devices.
According to the press release: “The research shows that the number of total connected devices is expected to increase from approximately 9 billion today to more than 24 billion in 2020, and within that, mobile connected devices will grow 100 per cent from more than 6 billion today to 12 billion in 2020.”
This would create a $1.2 trillion market opportunity for the wireless industry, seven times what is expected for 2011.
“We are entering the next phase in the development of the mobile industry, one where we will see mobile connect everything in our lives,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer for GSMA. “In this new Connected Life, mobile will transform society and will have a profound effect on the way we interact not only with each other, but also with our surroundings.”
These opportunities include increased connectivity with appliances, consumer electronic devices, and across sectors such as the health and automotive industries.
In a related story, Jon Peddie Research predicts that 300 million tablets will ship in 2016. Also, the firm expects three quarters of a billion smartphones will ship in 2016 and there will be increases in handheld game consoles and e-book readers.
“The processors powering these devices will be truly amazing, consuming remarkably little power, built in the latest nanometer technology, and delivering unbelievable performance and functionality,” suggests the Jon Peddie report. “And although all of the devices will share some functionality and capabilities, no single device will kill any of the others…at least immediately. Each device will have a different form, primary function, and price. All will be connected all the time, and most will have 3D displays and cameras.”
New research from Rice and Duke universities challenges conventional wisdom by suggesting that the removal of digital rights management restrictions can actually decrease music piracy.
“Marketing professors Dinah Vernik of Rice and Devavrat Purohit and Preyas Desai of Duke used analytical modeling to examine how piracy is influenced by the presence or absence of DRM restrictions,” explains the press release. “They found that while these restrictions make piracy more costly and difficult, the restrictions also have a negative impact on legal users who have no intention of doing anything illegal.”
“In many cases, DRM restrictions prevent legal users from doing something as normal as making backup copies of their music,” said Vernik, assistant professor of marketing at Rice. “Because of these inconveniences, some consumers choose to pirate.”
According to the research paper, copyright owners don’t necessarily benefit from less piracy. “Decreased piracy doesn’t guarantee increased profits,” Purohit said. “In fact, our analysis demonstrates that under some conditions, one can observe lower levels of piracy and lower profits.”
The press release includes a compelling statement from the late Steve Jobs: “Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.”
Creative COW asks if film is getting ready to fade to black: “While the debate has raged over whether or not film is dead, ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have quietly ceased production of film cameras within the last year to focus exclusively on design and manufacture of digital cameras. That’s right: someone, somewhere in the world is now holding the last film camera ever to roll off the line.”
“The demand for film cameras on a global basis has all but disappeared,” says Bill Russell, ARRI VP of cameras. “If you talk to the people in camera rentals, the amount of film camera utilization in the overall schedule is probably between 30 to 40 percent.”
While film may not be dead, it is most certainly on the decline. Digital production is on the rise, and for those still interested in shooting on film, used cameras are available.
“Almost nobody is buying new film cameras,” says Aaton founder Jean-Pierre Beauviala. “Why buy a new one when there are so many used cameras around the world?”
Stereoscopic 3D production may also be “accelerated the demise of film” says Beauviala, since it is “a nightmare to synchronize two film cameras.”
Russell predicts that film will eventually disappear, although the exact date is unknown. Phil Radin, executive VP of worldwide marketing at Panavision suggests the timing will be decided by the availability of resources. “Film will be around as long as Kodak and Fuji believe they can make money at it,” he says.
Early reviews to Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” — the director’s first foray into 3D production — are so enthusiastic that Steve Pond at TheWrap suggests, “it left one question lingering in the air: Has Scorsese just saved 3D?”
Pond was reacting to an early screening of the unfinished film at this week’s New York Film Festival, after which attendees raved about the experience. Katey Rich at CinemaBlend described it as, “probably the most gorgeous live-action 3D film ever made.”
Prior to the screening, the noted director explained that his film was not quite completed and would still require additional work with color correction, visual effects, music and sound.
That didn’t seem to deter a flood of positive reactions tweeted immediately following the screening. For example: “Hugo is outstanding. 1st film where 3D is a vital organ of the overall narrative. Brilliant and at its heart, profound.” Another: “In Hugo, Scorsese experiments w/ 3D the way Melies pioneered SFX. The simple first 1/3rd is a showcase for the power of visual storytelling.”
Streaming music service Spotify, which recently partnered with Facebook, saw its revenue more than quintuple last year. However, the British company still showed losses totaling $42 million, an increase from $26 million in 2009.
“Spotify’s performance has been closely monitored by the music industry, which sees it as a kind of litmus test for the viability of digital music by subscription, which pays labels each time a listener streams a particular song,” reports The New York Times. “That system brings in lower royalties per song than downloads, but with a large enough listener base could in theory bring in substantial amounts.”
Spotify subscriptions cost about $10 to $15 per month and includes an ad-supported free version. Daniel Ek, Spotify’s chief executive, recently announced that the service had reached the 2 million mark with paid subscribers, although there are believed to be more than 10 million total users.
Apple’s much anticipated iOS 5 launches this week and will require an upgrade to iTunes 10.5 in order to download.
According to TechCrunch, the new version of iTunes includes integration with iTunes Match: “For $25 a year, iTunes Match will give you legal digital access to any songs you own (be it through legal means or not). Match won’t actually launch until late October, but support is built into 10.5.”
The updated iTunes also “patches a number of Windows-specific security issues,” offers “Wi-Fi syncing support (when paired with iOS 5)” and provides “purchase history (for books, apps, etc.) through iCloud.”
Google unveiled an early preview version of its Dart programming language this week, which engineer Lars Bak of the Dart Team describes as “a class-based optionally typed programming language for building web applications.”
Bak writes on the Google Code blog that Dart has three design goals: 1) “Create a structured yet flexible language for web programming,” 2) “Make Dart feel familiar and natural to programmers and thus easy to learn,” and 3) “Ensure that Dart delivers high performance on all modern web browsers and environments ranging from small handheld devices to server-side execution.”
Google has made its language and preliminary development tools available as open source via dartlang.org, with code the company suggests will be “executable via a native virtual machine or on top of a JavaScript engine that translates Dart code to JavaScript,” reports The Next Web.
According to Google: “This means you can write a web application in Dart and have it compiled and run on any modern browser. The Dart VM is not currently integrated in Chrome but we plan to explore this option.”
CinemaNow — the online video service launched by electronics chain Best Buy in 2010 — has announced it will offer 1080p HD movies from Fox and Warner Bros. on personal computers. “Until now, only standard-definition movies were available from CinemaNow on the PC,” writes Carolyn Giardina in The Hollywood Reporter.
Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, indicates that CinemaNow is using Intel technology to make secure HD content available. “Intel Insider is a hardware-based security technology in second-generation Intel Core processors,” reports THR, “which is the fastest-shipping Intel product with more than 75 million units shipped to date.”
“The partnership with Intel and Best Buy’s CinemaNow to bring HD digital downloads of our movies to the PC will expand our reach to millions of devices in the U.S. and potentially more around the world,” adds Mike Dunn, worldwide president at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
CinemaNow currently offers approximately 15,000 movies and TV shows.
Launch day pre-orders for Apple’s iPhone 4S have already reached capacity, according to Verizon, AT&T and Apple. The only remaining model that is available for pre-sale is Sprint’s 32GB model.
In just 24 hours, the iPhone 4S pre-orders reportedly beat the one million mark, despite disappointment regarding no announcement yet for the iPhone 5.
According to Forbes, people aren’t waiting for the iPhone 5 for five reasons: 1) Users just want the latest technology now and aren’t going to wait; 2) “Many believe that the iPhone 4S really is the iPhone 5” and that Apple simply decided to misname it; 3) Sprint users can now join the iPhone club; 4) The 8 megapixel camera; and 5) “People really need a personal assistant” — while Siri may not be a “revolution,” many consumers are interested in the voice-recognition software.
The iPhone 4S will be available on Friday. The new model will be available to purchase in-store on October 14th, but limited supplies ensure that they will sell out as well. Apple itself has already referred to the upcoming launch as “the most successful iPhone launch we’ve ever had.”
Netflix has announced it will drop its controversial plan to split its streaming and DVD businesses, taking recent public outcry (and negative Wall Street reaction) into consideration.
“This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster,” wrote CEO Reed Hastings on the company blog and via email to subscribers. Hastings also explained that the company is “now done with price changes.”
Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix, told an industry crowd at MIPCOM in early October that he was “very convinced” the proposed split was “good for the long-term health of the business. And the long-term clarity of the brand.” Hastings had also been quoted as saying the split would be necessary for improving the services in moving forward. “But,” added Sarandos, “we also hear our customers, and we want to make sure we react to that.”
Netflix’s stock was up 6.8 percent yesterday following the announcement, giving it a market value of $6.57 billion.
ETCentric previously reported that the Indian government had been promising the world’s most affordable tablet PC for quite some time. The wait is now over, and the Aakash tablet has finally launched.
Running on Android 2.2 and boasting 32GB of Flash memory, 256MB RAM, two USB ports, and a 7-inch screen, the tablet will be sold to students for $35 and the general public for $50-$70 (current reports vary).
The Indian government is subsidizing the tablets (about $50 per tablet) to make them affordable. The student version will reportedly not feature a SIM card though, meaning that student users will need to rely on Wi-Fi for the time being.
The government hopes this project will help bolster India’s connectivity, which is below 10 percent penetration and limits the online potential of the nation’s 1.2 billion citizens.
YouTube is reportedly putting up $100 million in advances to well-known personalities and major media companies to produce original content channels on on its video site.
The plans include attracting major advertisers and getting higher ad rates for professional video programming. Insiders suggest that YouTube hopes to launch the channels sometime next year.
The Wall Street Journal reports that agreements are underway with the likes of pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, Warner Bros., News Corp.’s ShineReveille unit, BermanBraun, Fremantle Media (“The X Factor”), “CSI” creator Anthony Zuiker, and others.
According to WSJ: “With its channels initiative, Google — which has been under pressure to turn YouTube into a profit center since buying the site for $1.6 billion in 2006 — is aiming to position the site for the rise of televisions and cable set-top boxes that let people watch online video in their living rooms, said the people familiar with the matter. More people are also watching videos on their smartphones and tablets, pressuring traditional cable and satellite operators to make content available on smaller screens.”
ComScore numbers indicate YouTube had more than 600 million unique visits in September.
UC Davis researchers have determined how to transform the iPhone camera into a microscope with details up to 1.5 microns using a 1mm ball lens that offers 5x magnification.
The team “has one-upped the competition by making the iPhone into a 350x microscope for very little money,” reports TechCrunch. “Now you’ll be able to send people Instagrams of your blood cells.”
“The field of view is very small and there’s distortion to deal with, but by combining the in-focus areas of several pictures you can get a clear enough image to identify cell types, make counts, or even take spectroscopic readings,” comments the article on the image capturing process.
The post includes compelling side-by-side images comparing a commercial microscope with the iPhone camera set-up. There is also a link to the UC Davis paper, “Cell-Phone-Based Platform for Biomedical Device Development and Education Applications.”
“It may not be a mobile clinic, but in areas where money and electricity are hard to come by, an iPhone could be a valuable diagnostic tool,” suggests TechCrunch.
Facebook launched its Open Compute Project as an effort to open-source the technology of its 147,000-square-foot data center that opened in Oregon in April.
“It published blueprints for everything from the power supplies of its computers to the super-efficient cooling system of the building,” reports MIT’s Technology Review. “Other companies are now cherry-picking ideas from those designs to cut the costs of building similar facilities for cloud computing.”
Although the concept of sharing designs and allowing other companies to build similar cloud-computing facilities at a lower cost may seem altruistic, it also serves as “an attempt to manipulate the market for large-scale computing infrastructure in Facebook’s favor,” suggests the article.
“The company hopes to encourage hardware suppliers to adopt its designs widely, which could in turn drive down the cost of the server computers that deal with the growing mountain of photos and messages posted by its 750 million users,” explains Technology Review. “Just six months after the project’s debut, there are signs that the strategy is working and that it will lower the costs of building — and hence using — cloud computing infrastructure for other businesses, too.”
Frank Frankovsky, Facebook’s technical operations director and a founding member of the Open Compute Project, notes that the project opens the flow of ideas necessary to improve cloud technology. He is encouraging others to contribute new ideas and improvements to the current designs.
According to Miramax CEO Mike Lang, the future of the home entertainment industry and movie production rests in cloud-based digital locker UltraViolet.
Warner Home Video and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment are among the studios rolling out sellthrough titles this fall, which are capable of being stored on UltraViolet and then played on various compatible devices.
“As an industry, we really have to believe it,” Lang said in a Q&A session at MIPCOM in Cannes. “We really don’t have choice. If the home entertainment business as we know today, in terms of the transaction business, goes away, that’s not good for anyone in this room.”
“Lang said failure to reinvigorate the sellthrough model could adversely affect studios’ ability to finance movies going forward,” explains The Hollywood Reporter. “Sales of DVD/Blu-ray Disc/electronic sellthrough movies have historically affected whether a title was profitable or not.”
Lang suggests the digital transaction model has not always been clear to consumers, especially in terms of compatibility with all the available devices and different ecosystems. He points out that Netflix has been so successful due to its ease of streaming on multiple devices such as Blu-ray players and game consoles.
The Miramax exec believes the studios need to partner with tech companies and retailers moving forward to develop a cohesive strategy. “I don’t know how many people use photo sharing software, but that is 90 percent cloud-based,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of the software industry in the world is now through cloud-based transactions. I’m hopeful that the movie business gets there.”